A new documentary, Where Olive Trees Weep, explores Palestinian loss, trauma and the fight for justice over decades of life under Israeli occupation. We speak with two people featured in the film: Ashira Darwish, a Palestinian journalist and therapist, and Dr. Gabor Maté, an acclaimed Hungarian Canadian physician whose work focuses on addiction and trauma.
“I was only 16 when I was taken,” says Darwish, describing the first time she was beaten and arrested by Israeli soldiers, which motivated her to become a journalist in order to both document and fight against the occupation. “What’s happening in Palestine is devastating, and what’s happening in the West Bank and Gaza has been going on for 75 years.”
Maté, a Holocaust survivor born in Hungary, recounts his own trauma as a child and says “that same horror” is being inflicted on Palestinian children today.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We turn now to that new film, that explores the struggle of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation through themes of loss, trauma and the fight for justice. It’s called Where Olive Trees Weep. It features people like renowned trauma doctor Gabor Maté, Israeli journalist Amira Hass, Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi and Palestinian journalist and therapist Ashira Darwish. This is the trailer.
ASHIRA DARWISH: I heard the stories of the pains of how people were tortured in these spaces. I never believed it until I saw. And when I saw, I couldn’t unsee it.
NETA GOLAN: It’s so important for people to understand colonization in order to understand what’s happening in the world. And here in Palestine, you know, it’s happening now.
AMIRA HASS: So, how does the world completely turn a blind eye to the Israeli continuous violence and says Israel is the victim? This is the big — this is the big question.
ASHIRA DARWISH: I would see it and still get surprised every single time, that how could this soldier just shoot me? We are so dehumanized, to the point where they can come and they can exterminate you, because, to them, you’re nothing but a rat.
DR. GABOR MATÉ: I’m not pro-Palestinian, but I’m pro-truth. And the truth is, the Palestinians have been oppressed and suppressed and murdered and controlled and dispossessed for decades. That’s just the truth. There’s no post-traumatic stress disorder here, because the trauma is never post.
ASHIRA DARWISH: Your brother and your sister being in chains will not make this experience on Earth acceptable. Your chains will be still held by my chains. And unless I am free, you won’t be free.
AMY GOODMAN: The trailer of the film Where Olive Trees Weep, that premieres today. That last voice, the voice of Ashira Darwish, Palestinian journalist and trauma healer. She’s joining us from Newton, Massachusetts. She previously worked as a journalist and as a researcher for the BBC, for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. And we’re joined by acclaimed Canadian physician and author Dr. Gabor Maté, who’s also featured in the film. He is a Holocaust survivor, Order of Canada recipient and a Hungarian Canadian retired physician known for his work on trauma, addiction and childhood development, the internationally best-selling author of five books published in 40 languages on six continents. His most recent visit to the West Bank was in 2022, when he led a healing workshop for Palestinian women who had been imprisoned in Israeli jails. He’s joining us from Provence, France.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! I’m wondering how you each got involved with this film. And also, Ashira, as a journalist and a therapist, your response to the latest footage showing young men attacking and surrounding a Palestinian journalist named Saif Al-Qawasmi, attacked on duty, beaten on the head, a video, Haaretz journalist Nir Hasson also said attacked by a group of Israeli nationalist youth and posted video showing the violent scenes? What’s going on right now in the West Bank, which this film, Where Olive Trees Weep, focuses on?
ASHIRA DARWISH: Good morning, Amy. I’m glad to be here with you from [inaudible] land.
What’s happening in Palestine is devastating, and what’s happening in the West Bank and Gaza has been going on for 75 years. What happened to the journalists is not something new. This happens every single day. It just caught the cameras this time. We have hundreds of journalists incarcerated in Israeli prisons. And my friends and colleagues who were attacked in Jerusalem, and I know them personally, and it’s just horrific to watch them getting beaten.
But this is the reality every single march in Jerusalem, where the Israelis take over the streets, and they harass, terrorize the population there. And they are, of course, not friendly to the journalists, because they don’t want anyone filming them as they chant “Death to the Arabs” and as they attack the Palestinians. Every day on this day, for a Jerusalemite like me, I would walk through the streets of Jerusalem just to say that “we are here, and this is our right to be here.” And we get attacked, and we get fought back, and we have the........