The directors of Oscar-nominated documentary "5 Broken Cameras" joined HuffPost Live to discuss their film and why Israel is wrong to try to brand it an "Israeli film."
Palestinian Emad Burnat and Israeli Guy Davidi told HuffPost Live host Ahmed Shihab-Eldin that their film, a firsthand account of Israel's settlement expansion on Palestinian territories in the occupied West Bank through the construction of a wall of separation, is first and foremost a Palestinian story. This contradicts the Israeli embassy to the United States, which tweeted last month that "two Israeli films" ("5 Broken Cameras" and "The Gatekeepers") were nominated for a Best Documentary Feature Oscar.
"This is a Palestinian story," Davidi said. "That was challenging for Israeli society," he added, noting that attempts to brand "5 Broken Cameras" as an Israeli film ignore the context of the film and "completely [eliminate] the Palestinian content of the film, the Palestinian director of the film."
"This is a Palestinian film from the heart, from the mind and from the soul," Burnat said. "This is a Palestinian documentary."
Davidi said that Israel is using him "to show the good face of Israel."
"There is a need in Israel that everything will be representative outside in the world as an Israeli thing, because it's a way to cover that Israel is doing a lot of wrongs," he said. "So they want to show the good face of Israel, and they want to use me as, look, there is a good face to Israel. But objectively I'm a part of a very, very small minority of Israelis. So it's not fair to take me as a representative of Israelis."