Filtered Views

North American viewers will see a different version of a publically financied program on the six-day war.

The French edition is what Montreal-based producer Ina Fichman calls the "international version," which was sold to Italy's RAI, Australia's SBS and elsewhere.

It depicts, among other historical facts, the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians by the Israeli army, a move the narrator delicately describes as "the first change to the demographics of the West Bank." It shows, through the eyes of a former Arab resident and an Israeli who photographed the event, that, where large villages stood, now are forests (many planted with Canadian charitable donations).

There is also a sequence, as related by the American-born Abdullah Schleifer, editor of Palestine News, as well as an Arab whose home was destroyed, about the overnight razing of a 700-year-old Palestinian neighbourhood in Jerusalem by the triumphant Israeli defence minister, General Moshe Dayan.

But if you don't know the history of Israrel, how can you understand the present situation?

Maybe that is the idea.

TheStar