A Palestinian poses as he prepares a kite before trying to fly it with incendiaries over the border fence with Israel, in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza Strip on May 4, 2018. . (photo credit: SAID KHATIB / AFP)
After the tremendous success of the short movie Behind the Smoke Screen, which shows exclusive footage from inside the Gaza Strip and has been viewed over two million times so far, filmmaker Pierre Rehov produced a sequel sub-titled The Great Deception.
“I shot the video because I observed many times first hand how Palestinians build their propaganda and I strongly believe that no peace will be possible as long as international media believe their narrative instead of seeing the facts,” the French filmmaker told The Jerusalem Post with the release of the first part of the footage.
“Hamas knows that it can count on the international community when it launches initiatives such as those ‘peaceful protests’ which have claimed too many lives already, while Israel has no choice but to defend its borders.”
While part I of the footage from Gaza, aimed at changing the international perception of the six-week protest dubbed the “Great March of Return,” dealt with the subjects such as animal cruelty, women and children being used as human shields and environmental issues of the tire protests, part II turns to the issue of the character of the protests, juxtaposing examples of the UN condemning Israel for using excessive force with footage of violent protests and Hamas propaganda.
The video shows Palestinian protesters holding a map of Israel including the Golan Heights, West Bank and Gaza overlaid with a Palestinian flag echoing the goal of Hamas specified in its charter, to conquer every last bit of Israel.
Behind The Smokescreen Part 2 (The great deception). Courtesy Pierre Rehov
“The blood of our deeds is the fuel of the revolution,” one young female protester comments.
It goes on to show the Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour speaking of “Israeli atrocities” in an interview at the UN Security Council.
“We condemn in the strongest terms this atrocity by the Israeli occupying forces using this massive firepower against civilians who have the right to demonstrate peacefully and they have demonstrated peacefully.”
The clip then switches to footage of Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh proclaiming “Khaybar, Khaybar oh Jews, the army of Muhammad has began to return” at a public rally, strongly contradicting Mansour’s assertion. The Khaybar chant is a taunt used to remind Jews of the annihilation of the Jewish tribes of An Nadir in the Arabian Peninsula by Islam’s Prophet Muhammad in the year 628.
“Today our newest army, which is almighty, can do scary and terrible things to our enemies […] and this is thanks to our people,” Haniyeh then tells the crowd, which responds with chants of “death to Israel!”
Much of the video continues in a similar tone, showing different UN members such as Bolivia, Poland and Sweden condemning Israel and holding moments of silence for the Palestinian victims, juxtaposed with different Palestinian sources calling for the conquest of Jerusalem, attacking and kidnapping of Israeli civilians, flying kites with attached Molotov cocktails to burn Israeli crops, taking down the border fence “with our children’s fingernails” and protesters actually crossing the fence and praising Hamas’s military achievements. Behind The Smoke Screen (Pierre Rehov/Youtube)
The video also shows one Gazan saying that “Hamas tell themselves, instead of having people revolt and turn against us, we’ll send them to the fence and let them revolt there freely.
“When there is electricity, the televisions are streaming the ‘Great March of Return’ … march, march, go march and riot,” he explains. “They tell the women and children to go to the front line.”
The french filmmaker emphasized that, when making the short documentaries, he wanted to present only facts, adding that “One image is worth 1000 words.”
Rehov, who also writes regularly for the French daily Le Figaro, has been producing documentaries about the Arab-Israeli conflict for 18 years, many of which have aired on Israeli media outlets, including The Road to Jenin, debunking Mohammad Bakri’s claim of a massacre in Jenin, War Crimes in Gaza, demonstrating Hamas’s use of civilians as human shields and Beyond Deception Strategy, exploring the plight of minorities inside Israel and how BDS is hurting Palestinians.
Behind the Smoke Screen – The Great Deception, like the first part, was shot in recent weeks by two Palestinian cameramen who work with Rehov on a regular basis.
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