Dear Boston Palestine Film Festival Friends,

The Festival is about to begin September 29th with 9 days of great films by Palestinian artists. Sadly though, one of our featured actors/directors, Mohammed Bakri, is facing a crisis that requires our community's help. He's being sued by five Israeli soldiers as a result of his work, putting his family and home at risk.

Samia Halaby of the NYC Al-Jisser arts group writes: " I am writing on an important matter that is very painful to watch. Mohammad Bakri is being sued by 5 Israeli soldiers. This puts him and his family and the home, that he worked so hard for, in great danger. There is a small defense committee formed here in New York but not much has been done by us yet. The second day of his trial is on September 18th and he has written to us three times pleading for our help. He needs some money to pay his lawyer. Any amount would help get him going.

We as Arabs are besieged on all sides. The nasty journalism emanating from the New York Post is disturbing. The more endangered Israel feels the more vicious it becomes. I feel sad that one of our great artists -- actor, filmmaker, and story teller Mohammad Bakri --is being pushed to the edge. "

Despite the trial, Mohamed will be in Boston on September 29 at our Opening Party at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. He'll also be present to show his films, PRIVATE (3pm), JENIN,JENIN and SINCE YOU LEFT (5pm) at the Kendall Square Cinema on Sunday Sept 30...

Petah Tikva District Court is due on Tuesday to begin hearings on a NIS 2.5 million lawsuit filed more than four years ago by five soldiers who fought in the Jenin refugee camp during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002.

Ofer Ben-Natan, Doron Keidar, Nir Oshri, Adam Arbiv and Yonatan Van-Kaspel sued Israeli Arab actor and director Muhammad Bakri for producing the film Jenin, Jenin, and the cinamatheques in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for screening them, even though the film had been banned at the time by the state censor...

...The movie touched a raw nerve among Israelis. It was released in the middle of the intifada, when Palestinian suicide bombers were murdering many Israelis. Furthermore, the army's incursion into the Jenin refugee camp came in response to a spate of suicide attacks in March 2002, culminating in the attack on the Park Hotel in Netanya on the night of the Pessah Seder on March 27, in which 29 Israelis were killed.

During the fighting in Jenin, Palestinian spokesmen, human rights organizations and foreign journalists accused Israel of conducting a civilian massacre. In the end, it emerged, according to Israeli figures, that 52 Palestinians were killed in the refugee camp, including 38 armed fighters and 14 civilians. Twenty-three IDF soldiers died in the fighting.

Basing itself mainly on interviews with Palestinians in the refugee camp after the fighting ended, but also on film clips, Bakri portrayed Israeli troops as committing a series of war crimes. Although he described the film as a documentary, he did not interview Israeli officials or give them an opportunity to refute the allegations contained in the film.

The lawsuit, which was filed of behalf of the plaintiffs by attorney Amir Tytunovich, provides a long list of alleged examples of these allegations...