Advocate, directed by Rachel Leah Jones and
Philippe Bellaiche, is a documentary look at the human rights lawyer, Leah
Tsemel, who has been defending Palestinians since she became a lawyer back in
the 1960s. She defends armed activists
and non-violent activists, men and women, children and adults.
When asked why she defends terrorists, Tsemel explains that it is not clear to her that they are terrorists. She sees
them rather as freedom fighters.
In fact, it’s not a question of whether you condone the actions of the
people that she defends, but rather if you can understand what motivates them,
especially as they live under the strict regime of the Israeli occupation of
the West Bank and the morass of the legal system of the Civil Administration.
In this film, we meet Tsemel’s husband and grown children,
talking about her work. Tsemel admits
that she has only won one case in all of her years of practicing law – the
landmark case that she brought to the Supreme Court against the use of torture
in the interrogation of suspects. This
was a big success for her and also for Israeli democracy.
In another case, she defends a 13-year-old
Palestinian boy who, together with his 15-year-old cousin, went wielding knives
to a Jewish neighborhood. The cousin was
killed on the spot. The 13-year-old, a
child who hadn’t hurt anyone
and who clearly stated in his interrogation that he only intended to
frighten, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for what he had done. The shocking part is that we all know that if
Jewish hooligans, even adults, were caught running around an Arab village with lethal
weapons, they would be sent home with a reprimand. This imbalance in the way Arabs and Jews are
treated in the occupied territories and in the Israeli judicial system is quite
shocking.
In another scene, Tsemel is seen with her friend of many
years Hanan Ashrawi. They are both young mothers. Hanan tells the camera, and
the viewer who can bear to hear this, that imprisonment of family members is
the plight of every Palestinian family. This is perhaps the strongest line in the film.
The film Advocate is an extremely cogent and
powerful documentary story of a human rights lawyer who is fighting for justice
for all of us. The film is 108 minutes.
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