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Frontpage Interview's guest today is Pierre Rehov, a French filmmaker who has filmed six documentaries on the Palestinian Intifada. His documentary, Suicide Killers, which explores the psychology of suicide killers, has just been released on dvd. To watch the Suicide Killers trailer, click here.

FP: Pierre Rehov, welcome back to Frontpage Interview.

Rehov: Always a pleasure to answer your questions, Jamie.

FP: I would like to discuss some of your new projects with you today, but let's first talk a bit about Suicide Killers. Tell us the general nature of the film and also what reaction there has been to it from various quarters.

Rehov: As you already know, the making of Suicide Killers is a long story. I first wanted to make a film about victims of terror in Israel when I understood that the best homage I could give them would be for people to understand better what had really happened, and to film the perpetrators instead.

Unfortunately, victims of terror attacks have, more or less, in common, the same story. One day, their life changed dramatically, for no reason. In most cases they were not involved in politics, and their only fault was to be either Jewish or Americans and to find themselves at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

The ones that I interviewed in Israel could just not forget the smile they had seen on the face of the suicide bomber, one second before he blew himself up. This "smile" was intriguing to me. I wanted to go beyond it, to understand what make these living bombs tick. From my point of view, they are killers, and as guilty, in a weird way, as serial killers. This is the reason why I called my film "Suicide Killers."

FP: What do suicide killers and serial killers have in common?

Rehov: They have much in common with Norman Bates, the first major serial killer in the history of cinema (Hitchcock's "Psycho"). They are the result of a high level of frustration. In the case of Norman Bates, a nice, shy fellow, who ends up slaughtering every single female unlucky enough to spend the night in his motel, his own mother was responsible for that frustration, and he was doing it for her, being her hand, dressed with her clothes, to keep her alive.

In the case of Suicide Killers, they are the result of an organised frustration, created by their own civilisation, and they kill in the name of their God, being His hand, hoping for a better life in Paradise.

FP: Expand for us a bit on the civilization that spawns these frustrated sick people.

Rehov: The civilization has created these miserable individuals with extremely weak personalities. Their brains have been washed, and washed again, by too much religion and not enough individual freedom. Very often, they were abused by their parents, which is very common in Muslim societies, where violence is part of daily life. Therefore, as soon as I started "building" this film, I understood that the political and the social angles were not going to bring any answer to the question: "why do they do it?"

I know that my film is very controversial, since I chose the religious and sexual approach to try to find an explanation to this phenomenon. But this was brought to me by the terrorists themselves. I didn't make it up.

It is obvious, when you spend enough time with terrorists, whether males or females, that they suffer a lot from accumulated frustration and a high level of death anxiety which leads them to kill themselves while killing others (innocent people) as the only solution to finally feel alive, and to begin what they perceive as the only life, the eternal one. It is a strange paradox. But the human brain is complicated.

FP: So how has your film been accepted?

Rehov: What is very encouraging is that my film has been, first of all, accepted and even welcomed among many Palestinian intellectuals, who are disgusted with suicide bombers. In the U.S., most media, including CNN, were compelled by "Suicide Killers."

Before it was even released, while I was working on the third or fourth version of the film, I had to fly to America at least every other month to appear on TV, and give interviews. After all, my angle is the only one which can apply to why Palestinian terrorists, as well as British Muslims, become terrorists.

FP: Your film, From the River to the Sea, which examines the worldwide forces that have empowered Hamas and Hezbollah, received best award in its category at the Liberty film festival. Congrats. Tell us about the film and also why you think it received the award.

Rehov: "From the River to the Sea" is the result of a two year investigation inside Palestinian (so said) refugee camps. We must know, and remember that, those camps, created for most of them in 1948, perpetuate Palestinian misery with a political aim, and with the complicity of the United Nations.

Arab countries, which, by pride, and a tradition of anti-Semitism imported from Nazi Germany, refused the existence of the State of Israel, refused at the same time to re-settle their fellow Arabs who had fled the war zone in the midst of the rebirth of Israel. It is the only case, in the world, of so-said "refugees", transmitting their refugee status from generation to generation. When most Palestinians talk about "occupation," in our mind that defines the West Bank and Gaza. But, in their own words, Tel Aviv, Eilat, Haifa and all of Israel is occupation. Occupation is "from the Jordan river, to the Mediterranean Sea." This is what the title of my film refers to.

FP: What main point did you want to drive home in this film?

Rehov: I wanted to demonstrate that Hamas was not elected by accident, or as the result of Israel's misconduct. Hamas was elected for two reasons: a religious one, implying their relentless will to destroy Israel, and a social one, after years of corruption under Yasser Arafat. But, beyond this simple analysis, I also wanted to define responsibilities. Because terrorism is also the result of a suffering. And those poor fellows, in Palestinian camps, suffer, living in very harsh conditions. Although many times Israel and the West has tried to resettle them, for humanitarian and political reasons, they just could not, because of UNRWA (United Nation Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees ) and the surrounding Arab countries.

The end of the Palestinian refugee problem would be the end of the Palestinian problem. Israel has always been ready to trade territories for peace. But, each time that they try to do so, it is perceived as a victory by Palestinians, and it leads to situations such as the one we face now in Gaza. It will never be possible for those Palestinians to come back to what is now Israel, where only 15% of them come from. But, as long as UNRWA will be in charge of those poor fellows, as long as Arab countries will find interest in keeping them in camps (actually, those camps look like poor suburbs, don't expect to see tents anymore ), the Palestinian problem will survive, and will be the fertile ground for Palestinian terror. This is what my film is about. And I believe that this humanitarian point of view led it to winning an award at the Liberty Film Festival. I am very proud of it.

FP: What are some of your current projects?

Rehov: Actually, I have many. I just finished writing a novel trying to answer, as a fiction, the question: "How could we stop terrorism?" I was a published novelist, well known in France, 15 years ago. But I stopped writing. It was really pure happiness for me to write again. I am preparing another novel, and a scenario for a film. Again, a fiction. After 7 years dedicated to making documentaries, it is like a vacation for me to go back to fiction.

But, in the meantime, I am also preparing another feature documentary, which will be shot in most Arab countries, trying to find the contradiction inside the Muslim world, between Radical Islam and moderate Muslims. We are facing a threat which, to my point of view, is bigger and stronger than even Nazism or Communism. But one must not forget that Germans and Russians were the first victims of these two totalitarian systems. Moderate Muslims are the majority of Islam, but it is a silent one, in deep danger. This is what my film is going to be about. But I cannot say more without risking to put my team and myself in danger.

FP: Are you optimistic or pessimistic in our ability to prevail against Islamic fundamentalism?

Rehov: I am very pessimistic when it comes to radical Islam and its natural growth. The free world, in the past, had to face many threats, or, should I say, many faces of totalitarianism: Facism, Nazism and Communism. The major difference between those totalitarianisms and radical Islam is that radical Islam is the emanation of a religion and, therefore, something completely irrational.

I often described, in the past, Islamic terrorism as the result of a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. But this is something that most analysts in the West do not see. The post-Marxist approach which has contaminated most intellectuals in the western world is trying to explain most problems from an economical and social point of view. This naive, but very common approach is trying to describe radical Islam not as a result of a civilization unable to re-define its identity in the 21st century, but as a result of our own faults: namely, the economical supremacy of the greedy West.

Therefore, it becomes easy to excuse radical Islam, its violence, its unbearable level of hatred. We are responsible. We have been abusing them for such a long time. The next step would be to say that we deserve what is happening to us. And it is another easy step that - at least in France - many analysts don't hesitate to take.

This incapacity of understanding the real problem is what makes me really pessimistic. The world is not black and white, but it is certainly not grey either. Democracy has been proven to be the best system for human beings, so far. I don't find any excuse for dictatorship, and it would be also too easy to say that victims of dictatorships deserve what they get, because they let it happen.

The first step to cure the problem is to identify and acknowledge it. Only 6 years after September 11, it looks like if many people have forgotten that America was viciously attacked by fanatics. Many people are so anxious to get back to a normal occidental life: we have already so many problems to deal with. But the threat didn't disappear. Since 2001, some 7000 attacks around the world were due to radical Islam. Wherever radical Islam is in contact with a different civilization, whether oriental or occidental, Buddhist or Judeo-Christian, violence is the result.

How could I be optimistic?

FP: Well yes, in many respects, it's hard to be optimistic, that's for sure.

Could you kindly expand a bit on what the free world and free people must do to win our battle against Islamic extremism?

Rehov: Of course, there is no easy answer to this question. I believe that, first of all, it is impossible to fight the enemy unless you can define and locate him. The major problem we have now is that most people, in the Western world, don't acknowledge the dimension of the threat that we are facing. Media, and well thinking people, are afraid to describe the enemy as a religious one, fearing that this would be offensive and politely incorrect.

But the free world could fight the Nazis and, later, make peace with the German people. This is about the same situation that we are facing now, although we are not fighting a nation but a civilization. And the funny thing is that there are more victims of Islamic extremism inside Islam than anywhere else. So, by trying to hide the nature of the threat, we are doing exactly the opposite of a favor to the Muslims that we try not to offend.

Muslims respect strength. They have a very low sense of individual freedom and democracy. They consider our attitude as a proof of our inferiority. Whoever is involved in Jihad fights it with certitude. But we defend ourselves without the same certitude. It is like telling them "you are right, we know it, but we still need to protect our families."

As long as the media will try to find excuses to Islamic terror, as long as politicians will be prompt to condemn American foreign policy, or Israel, we will give winning points to radical Muslims.

And these winning points just give them more capacity to recruit inside the Muslim world.

So, to try to answer your question in a shorter way, I would say, this is a war, we must be ready to fight it and in a war there is no excuse to the enemy.

FP: Pierre Rehov, thank you for sharing your wisdom with us today. Congratulations on all your great work and thank you for joining us.

Rehov: Again, it is always a pleasure to express myself on your site.

By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com/

Labels: cinema, film, frontpage magazine, intifada, Pierre Rehov

posted by Robert Brady  # 6:10 PM