Censored Voices

On June 5, 1967 the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan approached the borders of Israel, threatening complete destruction of the country. Six days later, the war ended in a decisive victory for Israel, whose troops occupied Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula and the West Bank, expanding the area of the state threefold. The streets of the cities went wild with joy, but in addition to the euphoria and pride surrounding the emerging new narrative of an "invincible army," quite different voices were also heard. A week after the war ended, writer Amos Oz and editor Avraham Shapira recorded their conversations with soldiers who had recently returned from the war front. The tapes, censored and unavailable until recently, became the starting point for this extraordinary film, as well as its main axis.

The film discusses the tragic paradox of Zionism, in which a nation that seeks freedom turns itself into an occupier - David becomes Goliath. The sometimes frank and dramatic statements of the soldiers, combined with archival footage, film and television footage, combined with an extraordinary sound collage, create a unique effect and give a stunning sense of the actuality of the story shown in this film. The soldiers interviewed refuse to accept the systematic expulsion of Palestinians from their land by Jews, the inhumane nature of war and the echoes of the Holocaust. In the film, we review the tapes with the soldiers. However, they are 50 years older and listening to the recordings for the first time. The effect is electrifying - the past is instantly transformed into the present, exposing many political myths along the way.