If you haven’t already seen the 2011 documentary film “Five Broken Cameras,” please go to Hulu, iTunes, Netflix, or the PBS/POV website asap and do so! This is an amazing film about a small village in the Occupied West Bank and a courageous Palestinian farmer who filmed demonstrations there against illegal Israeli settlements and the building of a so-called security wall that cut villagers off from their land. The story is interwoven with the story of the filmmaker’s family, especially that of his youngest son, who watches the death of a friend at Israeli hands.

Films like this can be watched for free for a limited time at pbs.org/pov, so hurry if you don’t have the other services. You can also go to the filmmaker’s website, emadburnat.com to offer your support.

As Americans, we need to do whatever we can to oppose our country’s support of illegal Israeli policies against Palestinians. Not satisfied with having taken most of their land, the Israeli government is determined to take the rest by making life untenable in Gaza and the Occupied Territories. Not only does this take a devastating toll on the Palestinian people (who’ve suffered this way for over 65 years), but it’s tearing up a beautiful, ancient land of hills planted with olive trees. We see beautiful, probably very old olive trees being uprooted with bulldozers and burned by Israeli settlers in this film, as well as a little Palestinian boy (the filmmaker’s son, Gibreel) offering an olive branch to an Israeli soldier.

Watch it, and see for yourself.

I have a long list of other films and books on the subject that I’ll post about in the future.