Zero Degrees of Separation

Elle Flanders' documentary Zero Degrees of Separation attempts to shed light on the contemporary Middle Eastern conflict by profiling two mixed Israeli-Palestinian gay couples in Jerusalem. One would imagine that considerable cultural pressures would be brought to bear upon these couples, given the animosity between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as discrimination faced by homosexuals in general. Yet these issues are ignored in favor of a one-sided strident diatribe against Israel's policies toward Palestinians. While few would happily sanction the continued occupation of the West Bank and the dehumanizing treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli military forces, Flanders ignores the years of Palestinian terrorism that killed Israelis at home and overseas, thoroughly rewrites history in solely blaming Israel for the modern Palestinian refugee crisis (when in truth Egypt and Jordan respectively annexed Gaza and the West Bank in 1948, thus denying the Palestinians their UN-mandated statehood), and peppers her film with thoroughly irrelevant home movies that her grandparents shot in Israel in the early 1950s. As for the gay couples, the film conveniently omits one crucial fact: the couples can only live openly and securely in Israel, because homosexuals in the Palestinian territories have been the victim of state-sanctioned violence. Not recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)