Promises

Promises, a film about seven Palestinian and Israeli children, focuses on the Middle East conflict from a human rather than political perspective. The documentary was shot over a period of four years between the first and second Intifadas. The years between 1997 and 2000 are remembered as a time of relative peace in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Yet the presence of checkpoints, soldiers and terrorists are pervasive throughout this documentary and the tension is palpable. The children filmed live within thirty minutes of each other but are completely cut off from one another. The camera travels from an ultra-orthodox Jewish school to the Deheishe refugee camp, from Beit-El, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, to the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem as it follows the children playing sports, on the school playground, visiting a Palestinian father imprisoned by the Israelis or simply enjoying a birthday party.

The undercurrent of childlike innocence and hope severed by checkpoints and an uneasy truce underscores the urgent need for increased interfaith understanding. The children in Promises are very articulate, humorous, hopeful and angry. Their chilling comments often echo adult sentiments about the Middle East chaos, but their views on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are also often unique and incisive.

In one scene, some of the children choose to meet, and after a harrowing journey by an Israeli family to a Palestinian refugee camp, the children use broken English to communicate, so that no one in the Palestinian refugee camp hears Hebrew spoken, which would endanger them all. Their day is filled with joy, sports, good food and, at the end, a heart-rending discussion about their lives and chances to meet again.