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Popular Culture Review
and terrorists-in-training are killed in the explosions. Whether intention
ally or not, the filmmakers have reproduced the most lamentable, morally
dishonest aspect of Israel’s propaganda during the Begin administration
— precisely the kind of propaganda that le Carre wanted to dispel.18
Indeed, there is much left out of the cinematic treatment of Charlie’s visit to
the Palestinian camps in Lebanon. The film only depicts Charlie, and almost ex
clusively young male companions, engaging in such terrorist training as how to
wire bombs and install them underneath the frame of automobiles. The character
of Fatmeh, Michel’s and Khalil’s sister, and her work as a nurse is trimmed from
the screenplay. In the novel, the camp is full of women and children, just as le
Carre observed in visits to Lebanon. Charlie is incensed when Israeli planes en
danger the children, but no such air attack upon civilians is portrayed in Hill’s film.
Thus, in the film’s conclusion, when the camp is leveled by Israeli bombing, only
terrorists-in-training are being killed, letting the Israelis off the hook for any pos
sible collateral damage to civilians.
If any further justification is needed for failing to show mercy on these terror
ist training camps, it is provided by a scene which is not taken from the novel. The
Palestinians discover a young Zionist spy, who in reality has been dispatched by
Kurtz to watch over Charlie. The young boy is severely beaten, but he does not
give away Charlie’s true identity and mission. The camp commander Tayeh orders
the boy to be executed, and again the Palestinians are depicted as merciless killers.
In the novel, the Israelis find it more convenient to not inform Charlie of the camp’s
destruction. For she would know that its annihilation meant the deaths of numer
ous women and children, just as occurred at Sabra and Chatila. Accordingly, the
film omits the segment of the novel which attempts to depict the suffering of the
Palestinian people and the root causes of terrorism. Instead, Hill provides film
audiences with only the stereotypical Palestinian terrorist/murderer removed from
the context of his discontent
Nevertheless, the Mandel screenplay does contain the Joseph as Michel speech
outlining why he and his brother have resorted to violence. But the power of these
words is largely negated by Yorgo Voyagis’s wooden performance. Also cinematically, the story of Michel’s and Khalil’s family could have been depicted visually
with a voice over, rendering the Palestinian version of events with compelling
imagery. Instead, we have Joseph’s monologue. In addition, the Palestinians are
discredited by their association with the decadent European left. This is also true
in the novel, but the film goes even further, apparently suggesting that homosexu
ality is part and parcel of this decadence. For the PLO-employed German lawyer
Mesterbein has his throat slit in bed by a young Israeli agent masquerading as a
male prostitute. In fact, with all of the killings conducted by the Israelis in the