The Invasion and the Emmy

by Tasnim (Libya)

The Jordanian TV series  Al-Ijtiah (The Invasion) recently won an Emmy (well, jointly) and was named best new telenovela from among 40 nominees from 16 countries.  The series is set in the West Bank during ‘Operation Defensive Shield’, the 2002 Israeli invasion of Jenin, and was first broadcast in Ramadan 2007 by LBC, which screened it twice. Libyan TV also aired it later. Other broadcasters refused or decided to ignore the series, because of “sensitivities related to Israel” – that last part is an amazingly concise phrase used by “a production industry source” to cover a whole host of issues.

Actress Saba Mubarak praised the “courageous” decision to produce the series, pointing out that this an issue producers usually avoid. She rejected the argument that it was the drama’s storyline that won the Emmy, arguing that Al-Ijtiah won because it was “important and perfectly produced from the artistic point of view.” Her opinion was that looking at the Palestinian-Israeli struggle from the Arab point of view is more likely to have harmed than aided their chances of winning.

It could be argued however, that referring to Al-Ijtiah as presenting ‘the Arab point of view’ could be seen as a little simplistic. For one thing, there is a clear difference between the message behind Al-Ijtiah and for example, Al-Taghribya, another series on Palestine which aired a few years ago. Although both are clearly from an Arab point of view, their approaches are vastly different.

Al-Ijtiah, which is produced by Arab Telemedia Productions (ATP) and directed by (Tunisian) Shawqi Majiri, stars actors from Jordan, Syria and Palestine, including Abbas Al Nouri, Saba Mubarak, Iyad Nassar, and Nadera Emran. As the title indicates, it is about the invasion of Jenin, but it also tackles several “sensitive” love stories against this backdrop, including the relationship between a Palestinian called Mustafa and an Israeli called Yael. As the badly-translated information on Al-Ijtiah’s site makes clear, this is a story of love and war and “expressions of humanity.” So, although the argument for the artistic merit of the series is reasonable, it is also difficult to escape the fact that the story does seem to be, just a little bit, pitched towards the West, or at least, towards the Western-leaning Arab ‘moderate’.

This impression is only deepened by the producers stating that they had expected that the series would not be bought by most Arab TV channels. In fact, Yasser Qbeilat of ATP recently said that “we were right, the series was not marketed for Arab channels.” Given that, the fact that it was screened twice by LBC might be significant. As is usually the case in the Arab world, behind every drama there’s a broadcaster and behind every broadcaster there’s government funding and behind government funding, there’s that very important ingredient: an agenda. So, in comparison to the Taghribah, Al-Ijtiah seems to be quite the moderate Arab axis drama – a juxtaposition of David and Goliath and Romeo and Juliet. Or Mustafa and Yael.

Inevitably, Yael (who is a Peace Now activist) becomes something of a Pocahontas – woman as symbol for country - and the series successfully represents an Israeli heroine who is as two-dimensional as a cardboard cutout.

More broadly, most if not all of the scenes with Israeli characters are predicatably abysmal and cringe-worthy, and the drama more often that not falls into melodrama. This is unsurpising, seeing as when it comes to the artisitc merit of Arab drama, the preceding two words often render the melo prefix superfluous. But, on the other hand… the way this series is shot is also somewhat reminiscent of another Jordanian series, minus the historically inaccurate gaffes, because as in Asmahan, there’s less of the usual rising crescendo of music and sudden zoom-in syndrome which afflicts countless Egyptian series. There’s also less of the characters walking around each other in elliptical orbits while arguing and/or bleating about their lot in life and life in general. Moreover, the drama is significantly less needlessly tear-soaked than the average Arab soap, which is an acheivement, considering.

It is true that the opening of Al-Ijtiah includes numerous sad faces, but you can’t really tell a story like this without emotion, as is evident from the director’s description of the work as an attempt to represent the Palestinian people as more than just numbers in news bulletins. “The series talks about the human being with feelings and passions… the human being about whom no one talks any more,” Majiri said.

There were several scenes in the first episode which I feel accomplised that ‘humanization’ goal through effective understatement rather than overstatement. One was the scene with Mustafa’s group turning from the news to listening to Fairouz. The other was the scene with the children playing in the street the morning after the raid. This last scene is more almost-understated than understated. I feel it could have done without the tacked-on eulogy on resilience, as the episode as a whole could have benefited from more in the show rather than in the tell mode.

These criticisms aside, “Al-Ijtiah” (like the abruptly truncated Road to Kabul) deserves a wider audience -  at least, its a change from Turkish romances, Egyptian melodramas and Kuwaiti dysfunctional families. Optimistically, and rather bizarrely, the director believes the Emmy means that “All Arabs now have the right to watch the series.”