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Golda, a 2023 biographical drama film directed by Guy Nattiv, portrays former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir as a feminist icon, who served as Israel’s only female head of state from 1969 to 1976, and an inspirational politician, who played a major role in Israel’s 1973 war against Egypt, Syria and the coalition of Arab Countries.
Los Angeles Times, a newspaper with a distinct Zionist bent, described the movie as “lackluster”, wondering about reasons for assigning Jews’ roles to Jews only.
The movie ostensibly narrates the region’s history through the eye of Israel, denying Israel’s six-year occupation of the mentioned areas before the war. It doesn’t also show that the Egypt-Syria attack on Israel on October 6th, 1973 was for regaining the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights, respectively, both of which the Israeli regime had illegally occupied since 1967.
“It only scratches the surface,” the Washington Post, the U.S. renowned newspaper, commented on this regard.
The movie, in addition, praises Golda’s racist remarks towards the Palestinian people, quoting her denial of a Palestinian independent state. For Palestinians, Meir was a central figure in the war crimes via which ‘Israel’ was created.
“When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist,” Golda said.
Whenever the movie mentions Arabs, it only refers to them as “Egyptians and Syrians who attacked Israel” without also giving any reference to the Palestinians “don’t mourn their dead”.
Nada Elia, who teaches in the American Cultural Studies Programme at Western Washington University and is currently completing a book on Palestinian diaspora activism, said “She didn’t mourn them, whereas the death of every Jewish soldier killed in battle weighs heavily on her soul. Ultimately, while it was no doubt meant to buoy Israel’s propaganda, Golda sinks it”
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