In 2023, shortly before Hamas’s invasion of Israel, Oren Kessler published Palestine 1936, an acclaimed and masterful work that sheds light on the origins and history of an old conflict. This year, a movie covering the same period, Palestine 36, is short-listed for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. We asked Oren for his view, and to divine fact from fiction in a story “inspired by actual events” that, he reports, tells its tale without Jews. —The Editors
If there is one darkly positive consequence of the horrors that have engulfed the Middle East since the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, it is the renewed public interest in the conflict’s origins. It is a history I know intimately. My book, Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict, published just months before the attacks, chronicles a seminal chapter in the conflict and its enduring consequences until today.
That renewed interest is visible in the film industry as well. Of the 15 films short-listed for this year’s Oscar for Best International Feature, three center on Palestinian stories—two of them period dramas. One is titled Palestine 36.
