On Monday, the Berlinale film festival screened what could be the most intriguing of its entries – at least as far as Israelis are concerned. The British film "7 Days in Entebbe" is about the 1976 Operation Entebbe hostage rescue, in which terrorists hijacked an Air France flight en route from Israel to France, forcing it to land in Uganda.
The festival screening was the film's world premiere and it's difficult to say that it attempts to describe the events in an objective manner, devoid of a political agenda. Right at the start, the film explains to the audience that in 1947, the U.N. recommended the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine and that since then the Palestinians have been fighting to return to their country, helped by leftist revolutionaries. It also says that "the Palestinians call them 'freedom fighters,' the Israelis call them 'terrorists.'"
The screening of "7 Days in Entebbe" at the Berlin festival is particularly interesting because two of the hijackers were Germans, affiliated with the radical leftist Baader-Meinhof gang. The hijackers carried out a "selection," separating French passengers from the Israelis on the flight. The film dwells on the German terrorists' ideological deliberation: Could they behave like the Nazis and conduct a selection like that? Throughout the film, the humane terrorists (played by Rosamund Pike and Daniel Brühl) debate the philosophical question of whether they can or cannot kill Jews.
Israel's point man in the film is actor Lior Ashkenazi, who plays then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Shimon Peres, who at the time was defense minister, is portrayed by English actor Eddie Marsan, who pretty much nails it, including Peres' Polish accent.
Rabin is cast in the part of the dove who opposes military action to release the hostages and supports negotiations to free them. Peres is portrayed as the hawk, the one who pushes for a military operation, even going behind Rabin's back. At the end of the film, after the great military success, Rabin tells Peres that they must negotiate as the conflict "cannot go on forever."
To further drive the director's position home, the film concludes with a reference to Rabin's assassination in 1995, mentioning that the late prime minister was assassinated after signing a peace agreement with the Palestinians. The film says that Peres continued efforts to achieve peace and died a natural death (in 2016), and informs the audience that there is still no peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
At a press conference following the screening, Brazilian director José Padilha told journalists that the film provided an alternative to the official, "standard" narrative of Operation Entebbe, which is perceived as military and heroic.
Padilha said that for Israeli soldiers, being brave meant doing what [commander of the elite IDF forces during the mission and the only military casualty] Yonatan Netanyahu did, but for politicians being brave meant doing what Rabin did when he signed the Oslo Accords. The director said that politicians today lose "clout" when they are prepared to negotiate.
