Description
For more than 50 years they have shared a history shaped by anger, shattered by violence. Now they must confront an uncertain future. The images are all too familiar: the violence, the confrontations, the anger. This film shows a side of Israel that’s not so familiar – where Jews and Arabs live side by side. The city of Haifa is far from the West Bank or Jerusalem, but even here, where neighbours are strangers, they’ve learned to live with their differences. We look at two families who are Strangers In The Same Land. For so many Jews, Haifa was the entrance to a homeland, the promise of a new beginning. The huddled masses who floated to its shores over 50 years ago had survived the Holocaust. But their arrival soon made way for conflict with the Arabs of Palestine. Over six months, tens-of-thousands of Arabs fled Haifa. The Jews of Israel and the Arabs have been in lock-step for 50 years: through an endless parade of anguish and strife; four wars since 1948; Israel’s triumph always offset by the pain of personal loss – the Palestinian uprising, the Intifada, suicide bombers. It has shattered both peoples, laid bare the uncomfortable truth that the fate of each rests with the other. They have come close to peace – never close enough.