Australian rules football / Film following Palestinian-Israeli 'peace team' vies for top award

An Australian film portraying sports as a bridge between Arab and Jewish youths will arrive in Israel next month, when the Peres Center for Peace screens a documentary following the journey of an Australian rules football "peace team" composed of Israelis and Palestinians. The film shadows the team, which received sponsorship from the center, from its initial training sessions all the way through to its participation in the AFL International Cup in Australia.

The film, "Tackling Peace," by Australian director Marc Radomsky will compete next Friday for the Australian Film Industry award for best feature-length documentary.

The team includes 18-year-old Israeli Yonatan Belik, who had never met a Palestinian before he started training with the side but ultimately forged friendships with his Arabic-speaking teammates and became close with 16-year-old Leith Jaber, who comes from a highly politicized Palestinian family.

Then there's Naser Gous, a former Palestinian militant who spent three years in an Israeli jail after an attack on Israeli soldiers.

Israel's offensive in Gaza had a clear effect on the team, according to Harvey Belik - Yonatan's father and the team doctor - who immigrated to Israel from Australia in 1988.

The film ends with a scene from January 2009 showing an argument between Belik's son and Jaber, when Yonatan was then a newly-recruited soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.

"Things had changed by then," Harvey Belik said. In that scene the boys were arguing about "the rights and wrongs of the war, justifying each other's sides. There was some tension there," he said.

The scene ends with the boys embracing.

The film was also shown this week at the Parliament of the World's Religions conference in Melbourne, the world's largest interreligious gathering, where Yonatan Belik is participating in a panel discussion in the role of sports in bridging religious and cultural divides.

Harvey Belik said that he and his wife Loretta are still in contact with Jaber's family, and even met them for dinner last week.