Jewish filmmaker: We've reached a tipping point on Palestine

Award-winning filmmaker Gillian Mosely grew up in a pro-Zionist family between the United States and the United Kingdom, but although her relatives supported Zionist ideology, they never chose to relocate to Israel.

During her childhood, Mosely, a British-American Jew, hadn't heard of Palestine nor Palestinians, only of Arab enemies. It wasn't until she discovered her close friend's Palestinian identity, that she learnt more about the injustices faced by the people that she had long been taught were her foes.

Moseley spent the next decades of her life researching and relearning history, discovering Britain's colonial legacy in the Israel-Palestine conflict. She also learned about the Nakba, Palestinian displacement and land theft by Israeli colonisers.

Her research culminated in the 2022 documentary The Tinderbox, in which Mosely weaves together history and interviews with both Israeli and Palestinian voices across Israel and the occupied West Bank. Her film, which painted a portrait of a region on the edge, is now more relevant than ever.

In a recent conversation with TRT World, Mosely explains more about her upbringing and why being anti-Zionist does not make her anti-Semitic.

TRT World: No longer a tinderbox, but a full-blown inferno - could you predict at the time of filming (2018-2020) that things would blow up in the way they have?

Gillian Mosely: It wasn't a question of if something like October 7 would happen, it was a case of when.

If the situation was reversed, and at one point it was, when Britain was colonising the land and the Jews wanted them out in the mid-40s… extremist groups, like the Stern Gang and Irgun particularly, staged a series of terror attacks and didn't stop, until the Brits left.

Why do they think the Palestinians would be different?

It will never settle until the underlying issues are dealt with, in my opinion. We ignore this at our own peril.

There is not a single example in history of a situation where one group of people is so marginalised where the situation doesn't flip, at some point. Not a single one.

So why would the Israeli government think they'll be the first, out of thousands of years of human history. Even Israeli generals are telling them (the government) that it's backfiring royally, but they won't listen.

TRT World: OK, let's go back a bit to your upbringing before returning to the current situation. You grew up in pro-Zionist home, but why did your family decide not to resettle in Israel?

Gillian Mosely: Well, that's a very good question. Not a single member of my family, my immediate family, has ever relocated to Israel.

But they're in support of the state, they send money, my maternal side of the family in America voted for (former US President Donald) Trump.

And I think the English side is fascinating because we come from a long line of well-known Rabbis and were raised Orthodox. Our family was part of the Sephardi community and has been in Britain for more than 300-years, and we're very happy here. And it just seems, you know, why would we go to Israel?

TRT World: So what was the narrative you were told about Palestinians, that they were second-class citizens?

Gillian Mosely: This is possibly where my upbringing may have been different from others, I didn't even know about Palestine or Palestinians, even during my family visits to Israel. It was always Arabs, Arabs were the enemy. They are the ones who had 20-something states, and the Jews only wanted one.

TRT World: Is that one of the reasons why you made the film, to raise awareness, to show that humanity exists on both sides?

Gillian Mosely: Oh absolutely. Not only are we all human beings, but we're also, in my opinion, all connected energetically. So you know, if I punch somebody, am I really going to be surprised if they punch me back?

Can we call ourselves civilised, and allow that situation to continue?

TRT World: The other reason for your film, it was a tribute to your dear friend Tamer Al'Ghussein who was Palestinian. What did he say that first shattered the narrative that you had been taught, or was it more at a very base level, that hold on, Palestinians are human too?

Gillian Mosely: You know it wasn't him. It was his family. It was literally being sat around his family dinner table over plates of mezze, hearing about land theft, about a lawsuit, about their family homes and lands that had been taken away.

TRT World: When you heard all this, were you just really shocked that this was happening or did you think, because of your own upbringing, they must be exaggerating because they are Palestinians, and my grandparents were right?

Gillian Mosely: No, no, no. I just thought, hang on a second, what is going on here? I need to find out more, and so off I went to read up, and then I ended up travelling to the West Bank.

I helped Tamer and his aunt Lucy Nusseibeh, with her charity, Middle East Non-violence and Democracy, and they took me round. I told myself I'd never go back, unless it was to document what was happening, until the situation was resolved.

TRT World: But then how did your family deal with that? Your rejection of Zionism?

Gillian Mosely: We literally, as a family, have had to take Israel off the table. Otherwise, it would just descend into screaming matches.

It is difficult, because of course you don't want people you love to maintain a belief that you find abhorrent.

TRT World: Do you believe the principles of Judaism negate Zionism?

Gillian Mosely: Yes, in the way it's been enacted. Whether there was a form of Zionism that could have been neater, easier, more sympathetic, like the version such as what Ahad Ha'am (an early Zionist thinker) was suggesting, it's something we'll never know. He was suggesting that we move back slowly, but integrate.

TRT World: How do you feel about anti-Semitism being equated with anti-Zionist, or being pro-Hamas?

Gillian Mosely: I actually think that it's got to the stage where it's ridiculous.

The Jewish Policy Research group, surveys British Jews regularly on various things, and their recent survey that was published in February sometime shows that 37 percent of British Jews do not support Zionism anymore.

So the findings of the survey effectively means at least 37 percent of Jews, but probably more in this country, are now deemed anti-Semitic.

And the people who are gatekeeping this, people like Keir Starmer (Labour party leader) who are not actually Jewish themselves, but to me, a non-Jew calling a Jew anti-Semitic is itself an anti-Semitic act, a genuine anti-Semitic act.

And adopting the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition, you know it's unsustainable because it's obviously problematic. You can't call more than a third of British Jews anti-Semitic.

TRT World: You've previously referenced Naomi Klein's suggestion that Zionism has taken over from Judaism, is there truth in this and what has propelled this?

Gillian Mosely: If I've understood what she said, she's absolutely correct. She's basically saying that to many, Zionism has superseded Judaism as the thing to hold up. And to me that's a real problem because the entire point is that we're Jewish.

And we're meant to be practising our religion, upholding it, and if something else becomes more important than that, you know that something else (modern Zionism) is only, you know, 120 years old, versus upholding the religion itself, that is 2,500 years old.

That just seems to me to be complete nonsense. But I think she's really put her finger on it, you know, she stated that very clearly.

TRT World: You studied philosophy at the University of California-Berkeley in the 1980s, and today it's one of the sites of the Gaza solidarity encampments. Do you think the groundswell of campus protests will make a difference?

Gillian Mosely: Oh absolutely. Berkeley is one of those campuses that is known for its protests since the 1960s.

I think what's happening now is that we've reached a tipping point, where you get more and more people going to one side of the debate and then the equilibrium shifts, and I think that's what's happening now. You've got more and more people just standing up and saying, 'no, we're not going to do this. You can't do this.'

Also remember both in the US and here (UK), we're coming up on an election. The elected representatives are going to realise that at a certain point that they are going to lose votes if they don't temper what they're saying, that's kind of fascinating as well.

It's a good recipe for potential people power.

TRT World: You end your film with the line: ‘Us and them, or we?' After the war on Gaza, can ‘we' ever be a reality?

Gillian Mosely: I don't think it's ever too late.

The situation will shift. It's a question of when it will shift because it has to shift, because in history there has never been a situation like this that has remained, it will shift. It's just a question of when, and to what, and you know that I don't know.