Must see: To Die in Jerusalem

The day I left the theater after seeing Munich, I realized something. I have never really understood the Palestine vs Israel thing that much. Besides from the You stole my land, this land is mine shit, I never actually read up or did research on the subject. Too far from home, not my problem, right?

Well if you try to Wikipedia the situation, you still don't get much answers. It's all a blur. I don't know if people write about this and don't really go into the two sides out of fear... maybe. I thought that I needed to understand both sides to make an honest opinion. Besides, we all get affected by this fight. 9/11 is proof that this problem is closer than we think. So I needed to look up and learn more information. It wasn't going that well.

Enter To Die in Jerusalem. A great documentary running now on HBO. It's the story about a girl terrorist who one day walks out of her home and blows herself to pieces. In the process, she kills another girl, an Israeli who looks exactly like her. The documentary is mostly about two mothers, grieving each other's losses and trying to deal with all the pain and questions that they have. The victim's mother - although both mothers are victims in my book, a nice woman from Israel, wants to meet the Palestinian mother and ask her why this happened.

What kind of person just wakes up one morning and decides to kill? Why? How is it possible that one daughter can be so lost that she needs to do this for her country or her ideals, not telling a soul, not even her mother? What ensues is a deeply disturbing process, both mothers trying to meet and talk, but both having much reservations about it. This documentary is the first real glimpse, you get both sides of the story. At last, someone is talking about how they feel, their opinions, and not coming from political analists - it comes from two normal people, just like you and me.

At last, when I finished watching, I understood. I got my opinion. Nah, I won't go there. I have a right to my opinion, but I don't have a right to say it because I don't live either of those women's realities. But I can wish that someday they can live in peace... without violence and war.

Just watch, please.