'Who Will Write the History?'

Two gay filmmakers explore Israel's role as both victim and victimizer.

*Note: In keeping with our mission, the Hot Zone is putting a human face on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We're profiling doctors, victims of the violence, journalists and artists -- one from each side. In focusing more on the human picture than the political one, we aim to present a clearer portrayal of the scope of the conflict.

ISRAELI ARTIST 

TEL AVIV -- Gal Uchovsky is the writer of the critically acclaimed and commercially successful film "Walk on Water." He and director Eytan Fox are a filmmaking duo exploring thorny historical and contemporary issues facing

Uchovsky and Fox are gay men -- both business and personal partners -- who have been together for 18 years.

"Walk on Water" (http://www.walkonwatermovie.com) is about an Israeli Mossad intelligence agent ordered to assassinate a former Nazi officer. The agent strikes up a friendship with the man's gay grandson in an effort to get to him. But the relationship challenges the agent's rigid view of life, even as he attempts to carry out his mission.

The following is a partial transcript of my interview with Uchovsky at Café Tif'eret, in Tel Aviv's Sheinkin neighborhood, where Uchovsky and Fox live.

KEVIN SITES: Your movie deals with a variety of issues, but a prominent theme is how a society's history defines its present. The Holocaust has defined Israel in many ways -- even dominating it -- but to evolve a society has to put history in its proper place and move forward.

Do you think that's hard to do when you have people like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioning whether the Holocaust actually took place?

GAL UCHOVSKY: I don't care about this guy from

We become victimized to the point that we've become aggressors, and now others use terror as a weapon against us. It's not the tool of the strong, it's the tool of the weak. So (in our film) we wanted to examine the fact that we still see ourselves as victims -- even though we are a vibrant nation and have a strong army that can defend us just fine.

SITES: It does say on your film's Web site, "The filmmakers believe that the fact that Israelis are still so obsessed with the Holocaust and their status as victims renders them blind to the fact they themselves have become aggressors, imposing pain and suffering on the Palestinians. The filmmakers believe that the first step in helping the Israelis understand how cruel they themselves have become lies in making some kind of peace with their own traumatic past."

What kind of suffering specifically do you mean that the Israelis have imposed on the Palestinians?

UCHOVSKY: Well, the occupation -- building all these settlements on Palestinian lands. Apartheid roads. The

But also, it's not like the Palestinians have been very smart in how they've conducted themselves. They had opportunities and they didn't take them. People always fight about the details but there's a bigger truth.

SITES: What about those threats to Israel's existence, like the Hamas platform? Actually, what's your take on Hamas' recent victory in the Palestinian elections?

UCHOVSKY: It's been said a lot in Israel in the last two or three years that the equation that can solve the problem is one of security versus hope. Security for Israel, hope for the Palestinians. Hamas is not very radical at this moment, but they could become more radical. If everybody becomes very stupid and we don't talk with them, they'll get money from Iran and then things will get really crazy. We have to negotiate and talk with them. We are much stronger then they are. They have, like, five missiles that can kill maybe three people. But then people say here, "Oh they're not talking nice to us." Most of the polls show most Israelis say they think we should talk to them.

SITES: And on the other side, the polls show most of the Palestinians say they want Hamas to remove the "destruction of Israel" from the organization's stated principles.

UCHOVSKY: Yes, of course.

SITES: Back to the earlier question though, how do Israelis make that peace with their history, keep the Holocaust from making them a society of permanent victims?

"If people stop and think for a little bit, they start to realize places are much more complicated then their images."— Gal Uchovsky

UCHOVSKY: We have to understand that we're not there anymore. It was 1945. We had long hollow cheeks; we were very, very hungry. Some of our families were turned into soap. It was terrible. But we are not there anymore. We are a vibrant force in the world. We're not there anymore. Jews are pretty much safe in most places in the world. We are not like sheep to the slaughter. Israel was built on the notion of victimization. The "new Jew" was about creating a strong fighter, protecting his family at all costs. We have to get past that to our new reality.

SITES: You've also said your movie is a study of masculinity. In your film the gay characters become instructive in the education of Eyal, the Mossad agent. What is that education he's getting, and is there a larger lesson for Israeli society?

UCHOVSKY: I'm not comfortable with the notion of larger lessons. We tell stories first. I don't want to make movies about larger lessons. But we do want to have a place in them where it does make you think. Like issues that you can go out and talk about after you see the film.

When we started this movie we wanted to do a story about the relationship between a straight man and gay man. In most "gay-themed" movies, the gay man lives in the house and the straight man moves in next door and within in 72 minutes we'll see if the straight man turns out to be gay. It will just be the story about the pain of unrequited love. That's not the way it is. Our straight friends will most likely continue to be straight and that's good. We simply think that it's good for straight people have to gay friends. We think it makes you a better man.

SITES: How so?

UCHOVSKY: This is a bit banal, what I'm saying, but... I think at the end of the day it might be easier for straight men to connect with their feelings through another man, rather than a woman because of all the focus on the battle of the sexes. Put a gay man in with a group of straight men for a month -- things will definitely change. They will bring out some of the softer elements, a little bit more of the feminine -- but still in a masculine way. I mean the queenliest gay man is still really a man; aggressive like men, ambitious like men.

SITES: OK, what is the greatest challenge you see for Israeli society today?

UCHOVSKY: The big issue, obviously, is the peace and war thing and then comes all the rest.

SITES: But when you travel around the world, does that define you more than anything else? Will Israel only be seen framed by the conflict with the Palestinians?

UCHOVSKY: Most of the world thinks in a very clichéd way. A lot people of who saw "Walk on Water" said, "Israel looks so different than what we see on the news." If people stop and think for a little bit, they start to realize places are much more complicated then their images.

SITES: What's next for you and Eytan Fox?

UCHOVSKY: We're just editing our film called "The Bubble." It's the story of three people living in the Sheinkin area of Tel Aviv. We live in this neighborhood. It's very close to us. The characters are three roommates: two gay men, who are best friends but not lovers, and a woman. One of the guys falls in love with a Palestinian guy and brings him into their apartment and their lives in Tel Aviv. But because of society, they have to disguise who he is.

It all ends up being a kind of Shakespearean tragedy, because real life is stronger than just individuals.

The bubble refers to this area, Sheinkin. People say it's a bubble because people here are supposedly detached and don't know what's happening in the rest of Israel.

SITES: Is that true?

UCHOVSKY: I don't necessarily think so. I believe everybody lives in their own bubble. The question is which bubble will go down in history as real life and which will go down as the detached one. I think this is real life and the [illegal Israeli] settlements are an aversion to real life. The question is, who will write the history?

Most of all, we wanted to make something about our lives and we wanted to show Israelis what it feels like to be Palestinians.

Previously: Palestinian Victim

Next: Palestinian Artist 

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