Film hopes to spark new major

The Cal State Long Beach community was given an inside look into the lives of Israeli and Palestinian soldiers Tuesday night at the screening of the film "Cup Final."

One of the purposes of this film to educate people about Middle Eastern/Near Eastern culture, and promote an awareness of the development of this kind of history, said Sherna Gluck, co-chairman of the Middle East/Near East Sub-Committee of the International Education Committee.

"The idea is to build more interest and be able to establish either a concentration or a certificate in Middle Eastern Studies," Gluck said.
 

Director Eran Riklis set this film in Lebanon during the 1982 Israeli invasion and focused on the military and political tension that existed at the time.

The film centers on a small troop of Palestinian soldiers who capture two invading Israelis and force them travel through Lebanon as prisoners of war. The Israeli soldiers died on the mission to Beirut, where the PLO headquarters were located at the time, but bonds between the enemy soldiers formed on the way.

"You have these very human connections being made in these relationships, but there's still this overriding political context," Gluck said.

When one of the Palestinian soldiers in the film expresses his frustration towards what he feels is socialist ruling by the Israeli government, Cohan, one of the Israeli POWs, responds that the concern of every government is money.

"You know the difference between us?" Cohan asked the Palestinian soldiers "We fight like people, and you fight like animals."

However, the soldiers soon discover they all share a common interest in the World Cup soccer championship in Barcelona, Spain. That discussion leads the men to find common ground and become friends.

Relationships like these are symbolic in contradiction to the myth that ethnic groups like Arabs, Jews and Muslims hate one another, Gluck said.

Similarities between the cultures of the enemies were prevalent in the film when Cohan traveled to a Muslim town in Lebanon, and was given housing by a friend of Abu Eyash, a Palestinian soldier.

While in that town they attended an Arab wedding. It was evident that there was some cultural alliance between the Palestinians and the Israelis when Cohan knew how to perform the same type of dance that was being done at the wedding.

"That happens a lot," said CSULB student Brooke Hamilton "People don't think about what they have in common, they just argue about what they don't."