Pierre Rehov
Pierre Rehov (1952-) is the pseudonym of a French Jewish film maker and novelist, most known for his movies which are almost exclusively based on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Rehov was born to a Jewish family in Alger, Algeria, then a French colony. According to his website, there he experienced terrorism at a young age. In 1961 his family moved to France with as many as 250,000 other French colonists fleeing Algeria, which was to become independent the next year. He made later a film on the Jewish refugees (Silent Exodus) describing the fate of the million Jews expelled from Arab countries after 1948, but deliberately forgot to describe his own community from Algeria, considering that the Algerian war was a colonial problem involving France more than the Jewish community.
Rehov says he was not a pro-Israeli activist until 2000, when he saw the death of Muhammad al-Durrah on television, and doubted its authenticity. Since then, he has been working mostly in the Palestinian territories.
He, among others, requested an investigation into the murder of al-Durrah, in which he claimed that it was Palestinian gunfire that killed the child. This investigation was also featured in the film Decryptage by Philippe Bensoussan.
Rehov claims that every reporter must be (or appear to be) pro-Palestinian to work in the Palestinian territories safely and this, among other things, creates systematic anti-Israeli bias, especially on French media outlets. He advocates a two-state solution, for Palestinians and Israelis to live side by side, but does not believe that peace will be possible for many generations.
Since July 2005, Rehov has appeared on many TV networks including CNN, FOX and MNSBC.[1] In January 2008, Rehov was embedded in the 4/1 US cavalry in Baghdad, where he filmed hours of dailies, showing the situation in Iraq from the field. Those images will be part of his next documentary " Proliferation ".
Films
Rehov has subsequently created 8 films about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its treatment in the media:
- The Road to Jenin - Rehov's most known film by far; a response to Jenin, Jenin[2], a controversial documentary produced by Mohammed Bakri, in order to portray what Bakri calls "the Palestinian truth" about the "Battle of Jenin".
- The Trojan Horse - this film alleges that Yasser Arafat's true intentions were not a two-state solution, but a Palestinian state on the territory of all of Israel.
- Holy Land - Christians in Peril - a film which exposes the flight of Christians from PA-controlled lands.
- Silent Exodus - a film that talks about the Jewish exodus from Arab lands.
- Hostages of Hatred - how the Palestinian "right of return", supported by the UN, has left Palestinians in camps for half a century and originated the present unsolvable situation in the Middle East.
- From The River to the Sea was voted Best Film at The Liberty Film Festival 2006
- The War of Images
- Suicide Killers - 2006 documentary film exploring the psychopathology of suicide bombers.
- First comes Saturday, then comes Sunday - 2007 documentary film about the plight of Christians suffering under Islamic rules in the Middle East
- Proliferation - 2008 (In production)
Novels
- Cellules Blanches - Published by the major French publisher, Albin Michel. Soon to be translated in English, under the title "White Cells". A thriller about terrorism.