The Human Factor (15)
Directed by Dror Moreh
 

AS THE Israel-Palestine conflict rages once again, resulting in more violence and death, Dror Moreh’s timely new film provides an invaluable insight into the difficulties and elusiveness of achieving peace in the Middle East.

It takes an extraordinary and illuminating behind-the-scenes look at the United States’s decades-long involvement in the region, but through the eyes of the key US negotiators on the front line.

They talk candidly and openly about their experiences, painting a rich, eye-opening portrait of US presidents and Middle Eastern leaders, behind closed doors during crucial meetings.

Gamal Halal, who served four US presidents and seven secretaries of state, reveals how they all wanted to procure Middle East peace as it was a very sexy topic.

“All of them think they can reinvent the wheel, all of them think they can ignore history and start afresh. The Middle East is all about history. That is part of the problem, that is the curse.”

The mediators discuss the notions of manipulation and empathy as key tools of diplomacy and exactly what it took to persuade Israeli prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak to each, in turn, meet Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat — and vice versa — round the negotiating table, and to stay there.

Their gripping warts-and-all stories and meetings are brought to stark life by never-before-seen still shots of the key players caught in unguarded moments.

The warmth and mutual respect that grew between Rabin and Arafat is captured in these photographs during the negotiations, in which the pair agreed the beginnings of a permanent peace deal in the Oslo Accords — completely scuppered by Rabin’s assassination.

Both Arafat and US ex-president Bill Clinton looked visibly shaken and upset by his death as they paid their respects publicly.

It is a fascinating and thought-provoking documentary which shows how hostilities were nearly ended and how it will take two strong leaders — such as Rabin and Arafat, willing to compromise and meet each other halfway — in order to resolve the conflict and achieve permanent peace in the region.
 

In cinemas