The U.N. General Assembly president refused to cancel a screening of the film “Miral,” about a Palestinian teen coming of age in war-torn East Jerusalem, despite protests from American and Israeli Jewish organizations.
President Joseph Deiss went ahead with the March 14 evening screening in the General Assembly chamber, in the hopes that the film would “contribute to a peaceful and lasting solution that satisfies all parties.”
“Miral,” by award-winning American-Jewish director Julian Schnabel, was screened at the Mill Valley Film Festival last October, and opens April 1 in Bay Area theaters. It stars Freida Pinto, Willem Dafoe and Vanessa Redgrave.
The movie is based on the 2004 autobiographical novel by Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal that traces the Arab-Israeli conflict after 1948 from the perspective of a Palestinian orphan. Jebreal and Schnabel are a couple.
“We find it very troubling that the U.N. has chosen to feature this film in the G.A. Hall,” Israel’s U.N. delegation said in a letter of complaint sent March 11 to Deiss. “We are not aware of any other films with such contentious political content that have received this kind of endorsement from the president of the G.A.”
The letter said that the screening would “mark a rare occasion in which the U.N.’s G.A. Hall is used for a movie premiere. This is clearly a politicized decision of the U.N., one that shows poor judgment and a lack of evenhandedness.”
A panel discussion with Jebreal and Schnabel attended by representatives of several U.N. delegations was scheduled for after the movie.
American Jewish Committee executive director David Harris said in a letter to Deiss that showing such a film in the U.N. General Assembly hall “will only serve to reinforce the already widespread view that Israel simply cannot expect fair treatment in the U.N.” – jta & ap