The War Around Us (2014) Reviews

• Excellent exposure of the reality

  Raistlinredrobe2014-08-15

  The film has excellent, direct, footage of what is happening on the ground in Gaza when Israel strikes. You see very rare honest footage of the impact on peoples lives, while also appreciating the individual journalists who try to document things that the world would otherwise not see. For once you can see what is happening without it being just hearsay of either Israel or Hamas. Of course being a film about being inside Gaza when Israel attacks it, it has a certain perspective. It is not a documentary going into the endless history of who is right and wrong, but a film which just bears witness to the tragedy of violence. While it does not talk about Hamas firing rockets into Israel for example, it also does not try to support Hamas and nor does it attack Israeli or Jewish people. In this way, people who try to claim the film is mere propaganda have to explain how it can be possible that honest and direct images of what happens when bombs are dropped on civilians doesn't have a truth worth seeing in it. Ignore the commentary of the journalists narrating if you like, although I found it fine (what else would anyone feel if they were in the same situation), the images and sounds tell an undeniable truth that only those with an agenda of trying to hide this truth will try to persuade you from recognizing. If you are interested in understanding the conflict between Palestine and Israel, then of course there are many information sources and perspectives, but this one is undeniably an important one and I believe anyone who tries to convince you it is not has an agenda of their own.

• Truly terrifying & saddening documentary

  alympik2014-08-14

  This documentary accurately shows the terror that Palestinians have been subjected to by the Israeli government. Following two foreign reporters that are there to obtain a realistic view of what living under the thumb of Israel's terrorist oppression is actually like. Attempting to show the world who the real terrorists are in this 60+ year conflict. Civilian men, women & children are systematically bombed in what appears to be a conscious attempt to rid the world of Palestinians. Just a sad situation for humanity due to Israel's lack of humanity. I have never cried so much. The world needs to see this documentary to get a realistic glimpse of what it is like living under a truly oppressive regime that treats people as animals. I am not Arab or Muslim or Jew. I have no bias unlike another "reviewer" who obviously has no actual knowledge of the events leading up to the assault covered in this film. They, like most Israeli supporters, apparently rely solely on the propaganda that Israel perpetuates and stuffs down the throat of the outside world. Please, watch this with eyes wide open & without bias. Open your heart to a people who every right to exist & every right to the freedom that most of the world enjoys.

• Sad, heart-breaking...

  adipjnt2014-08-14

  I was crying the whole time when watching this movie. I cannot describe how sad I felt to see the real scenes of what's really happening out there. It's really sad and heart-breaking to see the faces of those people. The movie has inspired me a lot and it has enlightened me about what's really going on in Gaza. Not only did the movie try to show the audience the explosion, the cry, the blood, the tears, and the suffering, it also tried to show emotional state that people in Gaza deal with on a daily basis, which at the end will help the audience have the feel of personal connection with the victims. I think it's really selfish and erroneous for people to relate things that have been going on with religion issues. Based on what I have seen from the movie, it's trying to put that aside. Forget about Moslem, forget about Jews. It's not about it anymore. It's all about humanity.

• A Biased film which lies through omission.

  tetrahex2014-08-14

  This isn't so much a documentary as it is a propaganda piece. Of course its slanted, Israel is a tiny country, the size of new jersey, yet it has the highest density of journalists in the world. Interest in this region is disproportionate, and the judgment and opinions on this situation are also distorted. This isn't a documentary so much as it is propaganda, the director is the same one who did the infamous occupation 101, basically the go to video for Palestinian sympathizers, basically its not an objective project from the get go. The film basically shows endless scenes of the results of war on the Palestinian side. It is tragic when people die, but a documentary is supposed to reveal context, insight, instead this is just the tourism of suffering to try to gain sympathy for the Palestinians, depicting them as just innocent victims. The context is that in 2012, the "innocent" Palestinians fired 2,248 rockets into Israel. Yet in the film, all you see are f16's dropping bombs, the context that Israel isn't just bombing based on nothing is entirely lost. They show Israeli planes and bombs countless times, and just one Palestinian rocket launch when there were actually thousands. But thats the point, it would be like filming a documentary in Germany during world war 2, showing the suffering of the citizens in the bombed out cities, but never mentioning why this was happening. Never mentioning that Germany fired countless rockets at London, and had wreaked a campaign of terror against its neighbors. Context matters, or else its just one sided propaganda. In 2008 during the time of this documentary, 3,278 rockets were fired by the Palestinians into Israel. Its a huge omission. Other omissions? Palestinian forces included 20,000 paramilitary troops, they were armed with not just rockets but anti tank missiles, mortars, IEDs, anti aircraft missiles, and many other weapons, the depiction in this film is that there is just one side with a military, which is just false. One can verify this on wikipedia. Just to put this into perspective, if one scaled this situation up by population so it fit America, it would be the equivalent of Mexico firing 130,248 rockets into America in one year since Americas population is 39.73x more than Israels, and then getting bombed by f-16's and suffering a ground invasion as America reacted. If the reporters just showed the suffering of the Mexicans, without even acknowledging that they had instigated it with that level of attack, they couldn't be called anything more than propagandists. And again, to put it into perspective again, when Germany launched rockets against London, what was the allies reaction and the resulting carnage? The allies bombed to death a million civilians alone. I'm not saying this is right, but it calls into question the unrealistic standards films like these hold Israel to when historically, their reaction is not only restrained, but the deaths are minimized as much as possible, and idf soldiers are sent in on the ground because that is their effort to minimize civilian casualties, and the Israelis did lose soldiers, Jewish blood was lost to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties, no such favor is ever done for Israel, because the Palestinians moral standard on civilians is that they are legitimate targets. If the Israelis were really as callous as the documentary would like to imply, they would not have risked and lost so much Jewish blood by sending in ground troops, and would have just relied on bombs dropped from the air. All in all, not a good documentary, just propaganda. You have two reporters, doing not much reporting, they walk around and don't get to the bottom of anything, they don't really dig into hamas, they don't really bother talking to or showing the militants. They only walk amongst the civilians constantly pretending they have not a clue why this is going on. With such dishonest propaganda, there can be no peace, if your starting point is to give people such a one sided view of the situation, leaving out so much, you aren't educating, you are indoctrinating, and adding to the problem.

• Simply good documentary.

  wann-othman2014-08-14

  Since today the Palestinians had suffered a lot from the bombing, kidnapping and arresting without trial. Many civilian were killed such as innocent children, women, old men, and the press also cannot escape from the bombing by Israeli soldier. Besides, Israeli Occupation Forces ban Palestinian women and men from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque. This is what happened now at the West Bank where Israel control the Muslim that want to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Gaza, the world most occupied place which the people had to face 8 years of blockade either from Israel or from Egypt As Sisi regime also support the terrorism of Israel. Israel only give 10 percent of clean water to Gaza with the population at Gaza is 1.7 million. This is far not enough for the people there while Israel take 90 percent of the water. Many Israel air strike target the Palestinian house and Mosque at Gaza which they claimed that there were bombs inside the house. With 3 minutes of warning by small bombing where are the Palestinians should go? There is no evidence that Hamas(Islamic Organization at Gaza) hide their weapons at the civilians house. Besides the "Human Shield" is just the propaganda from the Zionist media. Since today there is no evidence that Hamas use civilians as human shield. This is not Muslim Propganda, this is the truth which the controlled media networks by Zionist do not tell you the truth. Open your eyes.