The Main Suspect

After Sharon has visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in September 2000, the so-called Al Aqsa Intifada breaks out, for which the Israeli Arabs side with the Palestinians. In fierce riots in Galilee, fourteen people are killed. The regional chief of police, major-general Alik Ron, is immediately branded public enemy number one. The government establishes a fact-finding committee, but filmmaker Yaky Yosha decides to start his own investigation. At times, his conversation partners’ suspicious attitude makes this an arduous process, but gradually he manages to get through to them. It turns out that Alik Ron is not the warhorse that public opinion mistakes him for, but a friendly, open-minded man, who goes to Nazareth to drink tea with an Arab family that establishes that the appeal to go and kill each other is a dead-end street: ‘In the end, we all deserve to live’. Eventually, Ron puts his head in the lion’s mouth, getting round the table with a group of Israeli Arabs. If this meeting initially has the character of a people’s tribunal, on parting some understanding seems to have budded, even if Ron thinks that you tame a swarm of aggressive bees with smoke, while his Arab table-companion prefers to patiently let them be.