Palestine 36
Perhaps the most comprehensive and valuable narrative drama to survey the origins of Palestinian subjugation in the Levant.
“The year you were born,” reads the opening title card to Palestine 36. It’s a daunting prescription that also invites the viewer into the story. Director Annemarie Jacir’s film doesn’t follow just one character, nor is it stuck in the second-person, so it’s unlikely that the “you” is meant to refer to any of the film’s many pre-Nakba Palestinian characters. And while Jacir’s film is perhaps the most comprehensive and valuable narrative drama to survey the origins of Palestinian subjugation in the Levant, it also doesn’t start, strictly speaking, from the most commonly accepted naissance of the issue: the 1917 Balfour Declaration. What exactly is being born in 1936 though? Arab and Palestinian resistance to the (pre-statehood) Israeli settler occupation of their land.
The historical consensus on the Great Palestinian Revolt is that it began in 1936 and lasted through 1939. To oversimplify, the resistance started with economic and political resistance within the system established by the British Mandate (or, in some cases, carried over by the British from the Ottoman). The general strike lasted from April to October and at the time could have been the longest general labor strike in economic history. The resistance then became violent, tearing apart the cohesion of the Arab community in the process. Two forms of resistance take center in Palestine 36.
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