Waltz With Bashir Has Echoes of Gaza

Award-winning film on 1982 Lebanon massacre looks plenty familiar

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 13, 2009 8:23 PM CST

(Newser) – Israel’s Gaza assault is slipping from US front pages, yet ironically, Waltz With Bashir, an Israeli animated film about the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war, is taking America by storm, earning mountains of critical praise and a Golden Globe. The parallels between that atrocity and the current conflict are striking, Gary Kamiya writes for Salon.

Then as now, Israel attempted to crush a nationalist movement by force, on a flimsy pretext, with America’s blessing. At the time Israelis cheered, but later came to see the Sabra and Shatilla massacre as a national shame. Someday, Gaza fervor, too, will fade. “Israelis will realize that their leaders sent them to kill hundreds of innocent people for nothing,” Kamiya writes. “Perhaps in 2036, some haunted filmmaker will release Waltz With Hamas.”

[Images (1)]

[Videos (1)]

[Quotes (3)]

In this image released by Sony Pictures Classics, a scene is shown from the animated film, "Waltz with Bashir. (AP Photo/Sony Pictures Classics)

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A look at the animated documentary. (YouTube)

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Sooner or later the patriotic war fervor will fade, and Israelis will realize that their leaders sent them to kill hundreds of innocent people for nothing. Perhaps in 2036, some haunted filmmaker will release Waltz With Hamas. - Gary Kamiya

For Israel the Gaza war has extremely limited strategic aims: Buy a little time, and play to a hawkish population in the run-up to an election. - Gary Kamiya

Today, Israel and America are applauding the war. But as Waltz With Bashir painfully demonstrates, today's glorious victories can become nightmares that haunts individuals and nations for decades. - Gary Kamiya

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Waltz With Bashir Has Echoes of Gaza