With the events in the Middle East dominating the news once again, it’s hard to imagine a peaceful way out of the current situation. But things haven’t always felt this bleak. For over 30 years, consecutive United States administrations oversaw efforts to broker peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours, and for a while it almost seemed like it could actually come to fruition.
In The Human Factor, Oscar nominated Israeli documentarian Dror Moreh (The Gatekeepers) presents a commendably balanced account of those years. Told from the view point of American negotiators, the film takes us to the heart of the conflict with one goal in mind, identifying the human factors that led to the failure of these historical talks.
“The Middle East is all about the history, that is part of the problem, that is the curse” says Gamal Helal, the Coptic-American interpreter who worked alongside four American presidents on the peace process. This idea lies at the heart of the film. Moreh is careful to point out that most of the team working alongside president Clinton, with the exception of Helal, were American Jews. This leads him to ask the million dollar question: can people ever be impartial if they are likely to sympathise with one side over the other.
From the shocking assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, to the famous handshakes between PLO president Yasser Arafat and consecutive Israeli leaders Barak and Netanyahu, The Human Factor attempts to identify what went wrong and how it could be fixed.
