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'Waltz with Bashir,' Gaza, and the post-moral world
By Bradley Burston
Tags: Gaza, Israel News 

Click here for more from Bradley Burston

I went to see "Waltz with Bashir" this week, not suspecting for a moment that the story it told would have anything to do with me.

That, it turns out, is precisely what the film is about. It has to do with everyone who has been in a war here, which is everyone here. It has to do with all those who have succeeded in getting on with their lives by turning a blind eye to, blaming away, repressing, or somehow ideologically reprocessing genuine, tangible horror. It has to do with the fear of memory here, the reluctance to look inward, the quiet terror over what one might actually uncover. And because it has to do with the moral failings of bitter enemies, we are, every one of us, in the movie.
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I knew, going in, that the film had to do with the filmmaker, Ari Folman, and his inability to remember his experiences as a 19-year-old soldier during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and, in particular, at the time of the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camp massacre.

What I did not know was that, scene by scene, the film was about to invade me, rumble over me and through me, corner me and take me over. I went to see Waltz with Bashir, but it wasn't really seeing that I did. It wasn't long before the film turned visceral. I saw armored personnel carriers and knew how to operate and load and clean the machine guns at their turrets, and I began to feel a fist inside rise from my gut upward until it took my windpipe, still from the inside, and strangled the air out of me, long ago, in a green uniform gone black with sweat, in what I would only later and only for that one instance recognize as claustrophobia.

The Christian Phalangists began emptying their AK-47s into the air, and I could smell the cordite as if they were in the next row.

For the time of war, adrenaline can seem good for whatever ails: claustrophobia, moral qualms, mortal fears, sleeplessness, free-floating anger, free-floating anxiety, depression. When it wears off, there are other palliatives for those of us who get off lucky, alive, limbs intact, minds formally whole. There is survivor guilt, which can manifest itself in self-delusion and/or self-hate and/or political activism and/or political extremism. There is denial. Then there is my personal favorite, a certain silence born of superstition, the sense that if you don't talk about a fortunate near miss, or those killed and crippled in a place you might have been, then it won't happen to you or your loved ones in the cumulative balance sheet of grief.

On January 11, when Waltz with Bashir won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, the war in Gaza had been raging for more than two weeks. Without commenting directly on the fighting in the Strip, Folman told The New York Times that the film, which he has called apolitical but anti-war, "will always be up-to-date because something will always happen again."

In a modern climate of diminished reality and computer-generated truth, the honesty of Waltz with Bashir comes as an astonishment. The Times interviewer, somewhat taken aback, responds: "You mean the prospect for peace seems so remote? That's sad."

"But it's true," Folman answers.

Folman's comment, and no less, his film, suggest that we now live in a post-moral world, a world in which, if nothing else, we can discern that both sides to this conflict commit grievous crimes, to little if any lasting effect, other than the injury done the victims on both sides.

If there is to be peace, and this is one of the world's faster growing of all "ifs," perhaps it will be just this post-moral outlook which will save us. For far too long, the attitude of pro- and anti-Israel sides to the wrangling over the Holy Land, has revolved over sophisticated versions of an "I was right all along" approach better confined to a kindergartener's arguments in schoolyard fights.

Perhaps its time we surrendered to what we know to be true, Arab and Jew both: The leaders on both sides lie. That is their job. They resort to war to protect the lies. Lies like We Will Never Recognize the Enemy. Our Efforts Will Bend Their Will. Only If We Demand Our Full Rights Will We Prevail.

We try to look beyond our leaders, to see someone better, but we can see little down the road.

There will be an election here in a week, but there will be no one to vote for. If the Palestinians were going to the polls on Tuesday to decide between Fatah and Hamas, they'd probably feel exactly the same.

The problem goes far beyond elected officials. We have learned from weary experience, that the apologists and apparatchiks on both sides lie. That is their job. We try to look beyond them, but there are too many of them to see beyond.

As Jews, we have come to see the post-moral world as caving in on us. On the eve of International Holocaust Day, the Vatican rehabilitated the post-moral British Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson, who had flatly denied both that 6 million Jews died in the Nazi Holocaust, and that any had been gassed.

Classically anti-Semitic incidents have multiplied, with daily reports of hate crimes from Caracas to Turkey.

Meanwhile, Palestinians every reason to echo the cries of a woman seen at the end of Waltz with Bashir, who calls, in her distress, "Where are the Arabs? They should be rushing here [to help us]!" For all of the concern and identification expressed across the Muslim world, the misery of Gaza remains a tragic constant.

Every night of the three weeks of hell in Gaza and the south, I had a different dream about the war. This is the one that, in retrospect, made sense:

As Ahmadinejad's campaign for June elections stalls, he orders the Hail Mary, ostensibly to avenge deaths in Gaza: a proportional military strike against Israel. He miscalculates, however, and annihilates everything in the Holy Land, Israeli and Palestinian alike, except for the three things that even nuclear holocaust cannot eradicate - cockroaches, Qassams, and settlement outposts.

Years from now, we may well look back on Waltz with Bashir as a work of rare maturity, a signpost toward a future less enamored of military means to political ends.

Years from now, we may look back on the film not only as anti-war, but, perhaps even more usefully for our purposes and future, a message that our humanity is better left open to the air, than locked away for safekeeping.

Previous blogs:

The Gaza War as reality television
Mr. Obama, grant Hamas the freedom to fail
In Gaza's shadow: Obama's inaugural message
Gaza War Diary IV - Can people die of ambivalence?
A Jew's prayer for the children of Gaza
Gaza War Diary III: If Mexico shelled Texas, like Hamas shells Israel
Gaza 2009 - To win, all Israel has to do is survive
Gaza War Diary II - Who speaks for the Gazans?
Gaza War Diary I - Wartime in Gaza: The worst anti-Israel charges you'll hear
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A promising start
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  1.   Postmodern Drivel. Read the Hamas Covenant. 15:57  |  Ovadiah ben Avraham 02/02/09
  2.   I think the world is just sick of it 16:35  |  De 02/02/09
  3.   Don`t try to kill me I won`t try to kill you 17:00  |  Richard 02/02/09
  4.   waltzing with Bashir and post-traumatic stress 17:01  |  eva 02/02/09
  5.   A LOUD AND CLEAR MESSAGE FROM "WALTZ" 17:03  |  indrajaya 02/02/09
  6.   Bradley, you see the truth but you`re part of the problem. 17:23  |  Michael 02/02/09
  7.   Waltz with Burston 17:53  |  Boris 02/02/09
  8.   "Waltz with Bashir" is a really good movie - 18:03  |  ivo 02/02/09
  9.   How about a moment of guilt from Arabs about their crimes? 18:17  |  judith 02/02/09
  10.   For a short moment I thought you have grown up 18:45  |  Kris Lazar 02/02/09
  11.   Waltz with Hamas 18:46  |  Joseph Hamadan 02/02/09
  12.   "he orders the Hail Mary"... 19:06  |  Silvienne 02/02/09
  13.   It is a game of the powerful... 19:20  |  A Palestinian 02/02/09
  14.   #6 Michael`s ladder 19:46  |  peter 02/02/09
  15.   Pie in The Sky 19:48  |  Michael Greenberg 02/02/09
  16.   Shoot and Cry 19:56  |  Binyamin 02/02/09
  17.   Post Moral World? 20:10  |  Mark Lincoln 02/02/09
  18.   A poignant last paragraph 20:22  |  Mark Lincoln 02/02/09
  19.   Silvienne #12: it`s the same as "blowing it to Kingdom Come" - 20:54  |  ivo 02/02/09
  20.   Peter 14. Why should the Arabs accept Israel? 22:02  |  Michael 02/02/09
  21.   #12 Silvienne...a Hail Mary is a sports term 22:22  |  Lynn 02/02/09
  22.   #5 Indy ...just as Hamas is now responsible 22:38  |  Lynn 02/02/09
  23.   Bradley One Thing We Can Always Count On 22:41  |  Yosemite 02/02/09
  24.   Waltz with Bashir 22:42  |  Ronnie 02/02/09
  25.   waltz with al quaeda 23:29  |  alberto 02/02/09
  26.   Waltz is a very thoughtful movie 23:34  |  aryeh 02/02/09
  27.   Zombieism 23:42  |  sh 02/02/09
  28.   Lynn #21 ( & Silvienne): I`m sure you`re right - 00:02  |  ivo 03/02/09
  29.   mark Lincoln 00:05  |  Danite 03/02/09
  30.   No waltzing for Israeli politicians. They prefer the beat of war. 00:32  |  Maureen Ann 03/02/09
  31.   ISRAEL SU-CONSCIENCE: A MECHANISM TO DENY AND TO FORGET 00:40  |  indrajaya 03/02/09
  32.   Peter a simplistic question and easy answer 03:07  |  Mark Lincoln 03/02/09
  33.   waltz with bashir 03:44  |  David Schulman 03/02/09
  34.   Introspection of the Moslem kind 04:15  |  allang 03/02/09
  35.   Mr. Burston...the post-moral world caving in 04:33  |  Lynn 03/02/09
  36.   Try reading the "Hamas Covenant 1988". 04:53  |  paul bass 03/02/09
  37.   Introspection of the Moslem kind 04:54  |  allang 03/02/09
  38.   #28 ivo ..."blowing it to Kingdom come" 04:55  |  Lynn 03/02/09
  39.   Introspection of the Moslem kind 05:54  |  allang 03/02/09
  40.   INDRAJAYA Why are Arabs never responsible for anything they do? 10:39  |  PETER SM 03/02/09
  41.   LAZAR Try blaming your friends for using Lebanon as a base 10:49  |  PETER SM 03/02/09
  42.   The Arabs have won only one "war" over the past 40 years..... 11:11  |  Swiss (Dino) 03/02/09
  43.   Mark Lincoln AND the new morality 12:31  |  Mikael 03/02/09
  44.   #20-Michael tries the ladder again 13:08  |  peter 03/02/09
  45.   I think the world was embracing change in the United States 13:12  |  Chris Linthwaite 03/02/09
  46.   Not post-morality Bradley but amorality 13:19  |  Jasmine Murphy 03/02/09
  47.   #32 Mark`s simplistic answer 13:24  |  peter 03/02/09
  48.   I also saw Waltz with Bashir yesterday, but my conclusions differ 13:41  |  AA 03/02/09
  49.   #44 Linthwaite....turn your attention to Sri Lanka 14:11  |  Lynn 03/02/09
  50.   You can`t do anything about the others AA 14:41  |  sh 03/02/09
  51.   Bashir attracts the wrong sort 18:51  |  Jed 03/02/09
  52.   waltz with bashir 20:12  |  lea 03/02/09
  53.   Lightweight, don`t exaggerate - you don`t think at all 21:55  |  x-ray 03/02/09
  54.   ovadiah ben abraham 1 05:36  |  curious 04/02/09
  55.   Both Brother Nathanael and Rosanne Barr say the movie is NOT 07:10  |  Yaakub Sullivan 04/02/09
  56.   # 51, JED 07:12  |  indrajaya 04/02/09
  57.   New Way To Save Gasoline 07:48  |  Yosemite 05/02/09
  58.   "Predestined Enemy"..A Proverb:To All of You... 21:49  |  Kathy 07/02/09
  59.   I am so tired of this drivel 23:08  |  Gili 07/02/09
  60.   Bradley Burston Waltz with Bashir 08:34  |  Judith Nusbaum 08/02/09
  61.   #60 Judith Nusbaum & #59 Gilli Here was my original. 14:14  |  Kathy 08/02/09
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