1913: Seeds of Conflict

In recent years, the seminal 1913 film The Life of Jews in Palestine resurfaced, offering a vivid portrayal of a time when Jews, Arabs, and Christians lived together in relative harmony. Drawing on that earlier documentary, filmmaker Ben Loeterman's PBS-aired 1913: Seeds of Conflict examines a period when things started to go wrong, a turning point that set Arab against Jew, launching a conflict that continues to have enormous impact on the world today. At the time, Palestine was still a part of the Ottoman Empire, and many Jews were Sephardic or Mediterranean in origin (identifying with the prevailing Ottoman culture). However, around 1880, eastern European Jews were scapegoated and persecuted—blamed for the assassination of the Russian czar—which led to a wave of emigration to the Holy Land. Pogroms that took place around 1905 sparked a fresh emigration of more politically active Jews, many of whom cited the need for a Zionist homeland. They often formed collective farms, spreading out across the landscape. Calling the area "a land without a people for a people without land," they neglected the status of many Arabs, who were renting from absentee Arab landowners, but nevertheless felt a very real claim on the land. The documentary notes a growing sense of "distrust, enmity, and violence"—despite the voices of some Jewish and Arab leaders who sought compromise—and a Zionist paramilitary group worsened the situation with aggressive, insensitive actions. Things reached a flashpoint when some Arab camel drivers stole grapes from a Jewish vineyard, spurring a gunfight that resulted in several deaths. Efforts to mediate were cut short by the outbreak of World War I, after which a number of factors—increasing political change, the Holocaust, the rise of terrorism, and other calamities—doomed any chance of peace. Combining comments from historians with dramatic recreations, as well as excerpts from the 1913 film, this documentary tells a poignant and informative tale of how things could have been different. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (S. Rees)