Occupied Palestine

The opening credit on this documentary reads 'Vanessa Redgrave Productions presents...', but those expecting the cause-mongering propaganda of a crank will be disappointed. For Koff's film does allow the opposition's apologists to defend Israel and Zionism. Occupied Palestine has sufficient perspective to be able to see the 'repossession' of land by the Israelis both as a cultural fulfilment of Zionism and as an economic strategy since, as one witness shrewdly observes, 'the separation of the Arab from his land provided a mobile labour force in the service of the Zionist economy'. The catalogue of atrocities attributed to the Israeli army makes it very difficult to dismiss the Palestinian case out of hand.