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The Political Scene | The New Yorker
HBO’s “Our Boys,” a Brutally Truthful Depiction of the Effects of Hate Crime
00:15:04
HBO’s “Our Boys,” a Brutally Truthful Depiction of the Effects of Hate Crime
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- [00:00]
Katie Drummond
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- [01:16]
Michael Calore
This is the Politics and More podcast.
- [01:18]
Haggai Levi
I'm David Remnant.
- [01:27]
Michael Calore
I've been following the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians for many years and I've spent time there as a reporter trying to understand what the conflict has done to the people who live with it every single day. I have not seen a depiction of the situation as complex and as deep as the 10 part series called Our Boys. A co production of HBO and the Israeli studio Keshet, Our Boys tells a horrible true story. In 2014, a Palestinian teenager named Mohammed Abu Kader was kidnapped, burned and brutally murdered. His body was left in the Jerusalem forest. The crime was an act of reprisal. Israeli extremists were retaliating for the murder of three Israeli boys by a Hamas linked group just weeks earlier. Our Boys thoroughly examines just about all of the forces that led to the death of Muhammad Abu Khader. It's not for the faint of heart, it just isn't. But if you want to understand the currents of extremism and violence, I really do recommend Our Boys to you highly. Two of the creators of the show are Haggai Levi and Topek Abu. Well, I reached them in Tel Aviv last week. Haggai, what was the starting point for this project? How did you come to tell the story of the death of Muhammad Abu Khedar?
- [02:42]
Haggai Levi
So in the beginning we wrote a pilot for HBO and the pilot focused more on the far right wing groups in Israel, like Hilltop Boys or Lehabah, you know, really?
- [02:57]
Michael Calore
The Hilltop Boys being settlers who are particularly radical and living in the West Bank.
- [03:03]
Haggai Levi
Exactly. Most of them teens actually, but very, very violent and very Messiah ideology and so on. So in the beginning, we took the Abu Khdir case only as a starting point to go and explore those groups and to understand the connection to those radical groups, to the more political leaders, until all the way to the government. But I felt it wasn't real enough, it wasn't true. It was a fictional series inspired by certain reality and certain events, but it wasn't like true. So by the time I called Joseph Seder, the director, Joseph Seder, whom I knew, and Joseph asked me to explore more the case of Abu Ghdir itself. At that time, Trump was elected and we were in shock. Well, not like you, but we were. And I felt that this is something different. It's not about very, it's not about religion or very extreme ideologies. This is what I felt at the time, but more about hate. And then we understood that what we want to do actually is to examine the nature of hate crime, you know, to make an anatomy of hate crime. And this is what we were trying to do.
- [04:31]
Michael Calore
You also brought in a third person who's sitting with you right now, Tofik and Topfik. I should explain that you live within Israel, you don't live in the west bank. You are Palestinian, Israeli. And I wonder how complicated your decision to get involved was. Tawfik.
- [04:52]
Tofik Abu
Actually it was like a story. Because usually I get calls from Israel filmmakers or creators when they have something about Arabs. And all the time I say no. This time when Joseph called me, I just met him for a while and then I found myself traveling with him and with Hagai Levi to visit Abukhdir family, the parents of Mohammad Abukhdir Hussain and Soha. And suddenly I watch their pain, you know, they're like something you can't imagine, you see, especially in the mom in Soha face. They were very nervous about the fact that Israeli creators are going to tell their own story. And just when they realized that I am the one who is going to tell their son story. And it's something changed in their faces. And I can't forget that, you know, it's like something. All the tension they had, it suddenly became like something, you know, even sweet in their faces when they realized that I'm the one who is going to tell their own story. And after that, I had a lot of pressure from Palestinians, activist Palestinians, not to make this serious because it's an Israeli production, it's Israeli creators, and I'm not regular to this kind of pressure because I don't deal with direct politics. And it was very hard for me. I hesitated, I almost left making this show, but I called Hossein, the father of Muhammad, and I just told him about my hesitation. And I remember he told me, if your consensus is clear, do it. If not, don't do it. He was so calm, you know, and then I understand that my own problems, it's like very tiny for him, for such a person who passed such a tragedy. And I decided to make it, you know, despite all the difficulties and the pressure I had.
- [07:10]
Michael Calore
So what was the collaboration like? The debates you had, the arguments you had in trying to conceive and write the story at such a deep level. The story not only features the three young religious men who committed the murder, it also is about the Palestinian family. It's about a woman who was a psychiatrist for one of the Israelis. It's an immensely complex story. And I wonder what your debates were like, your conversations, your arguments.
- [07:37]
Haggai Levi
So we had to bridge not only artistic differences. So that was one part of the problem, I should say. And the other was to find the right narrative. I could bring the example of the interrogation of Hussein. Okay, so when Hussein's Muhammad's father, where he's brought to the police station.
- [08:14]
Tofik Abu
The.
- [08:14]
Michael Calore
Scene that you're talking about is remarkable. Hussein, whose son is missing and will eventually be found dead, beaten and burned to death, is interrogated by the police, the Israeli police, not in a sense of sympathy, but in a sense of suspicion. And this suddenly dawns on him. And throughout the series, he's constantly in the middle. He has forces on the Palestinian side who want him to not cooperate with the investigation and to become more politically radicalized and to be used as a symbol. And at the same time, he's a father, he's a husband, he's in the middle of so much in this drama.
- [09:06]
Haggai Levi
Absolutely. And he has his own journey from just a very simple merchant to become a political figure and to take his pain into the political field. So that was on that specific scene, I think Tawfiq Felt different and told us, I was there. I've been interrogated here and there in airports and so, and this is how it looks like. So that was kind of debate we had.
- [09:36]
Michael Calore
Now Haka, you mentioned somewhere that there is a parallel between what happened in 2014 in Israel and the current political climate in the United States. Especially when it comes to something like the El Paso shooting. What's the parallel that you see there?
- [09:55]
Haggai Levi
So at a certain point I felt that we are dealing with hate crime which is not necessarily particular to Israel. Hate crime. You know, this is. Something is going on all over America and Europe towards immigrants, towards I don't know, gays, some, all kinds of minorities. What I try to understand is how what would cause this kind of hate crime and what kind of theory that we try to put here is that it's kind of a layered structure in a way that you have, you know, you know, you have someone with some psychological problem and some socio economical problems and he's from the suburbs and there is kind of even certain racism towards himself and some other problems. And if that kind of person meets with incitement at the right point, that could create the perfect storm for a hate crime. This is what we try to say.
- [11:04]
Michael Calore
You've gotten some good reviews in the left wing Israeli press and Haaretz most commonly quoted left wing Israeli newspaper. But in the right wing Jerusalem Post it said the series sins by encouraging the moral equivalency chorus. Have you gotten a lot of pushback on the show from critics both in the press and elsewhere?
- [11:31]
Haggai Levi
I can understand that it is hard to understand our choice. You know, you could argue why would you do a series about Jewish terror when it's so rare comparing to Palestinian terror? It is a legitimate question. So.
- [11:45]
Michael Calore
Well, how do you answer the question?
- [11:50]
Haggai Levi
Well, the answers are that I have, you know, I can speak for myself is that I always would like to dig into my own soul. This is what I'm, this is what I'm doing in everything I do. So it was very obvious for me to, to understand and to inquire my own personally, my own feelings of superiority, my own racism, my, you know, all of these things. I felt that there is that I have some of them. And by searching by dig, dig in into this specific story, I felt like I dig into myself that I'm, that I'm telling a very personal story. It is not a series about terror at all. You know, not a Palestinian terror or a Jewish terror. It's not about terror. It's actually mainly about understanding the nature of some killer or some killers or some murder and to understand why, how could it happen and what are the circumstances that it could happen in. So this is not about terror. It's about something else that I felt. It's very personal for me.
- [13:13]
Tofik Abu
I just want to bring my point of view about your question, why you choose to make this story, you know, because it's all the time, you know, the same question, you know, as I see it, you know, here, Israelis and Palestinians like live in their injury. So mostly a lot of people will judge everything if it's against us, if it's, you know, good for us. So you can't get away with, to satisfy everybody, you know, because from Palestinian point of view, the occupation itself is a terror. It's everyday terror, you know, like, you know, Jewish people or settlers, excuse me, I can't. It's not Jewish, you know, I prefer to use the word Israeli. Israeli people, it's. They don't need to do it, you know, because the system do it by itself. And so it's complicated. It's complicated for everybody. And what I think, you know, that the Syrian, you know, didn't mean to satisfy anybody. It just, you know, to like, like Hagai said, it's to dig in a story, to dig in a character, to dig in yourself and also to be critical about, you know, the, the situation and the society that you are dealing with.
- [14:33]
Haggai Levi
By the way, to the Palestinian society as well.
- [14:35]
Tofik Abu
Yes, the Palestinian society as well.
- [14:37]
Haggai Levi
As we see in the series. Yeah.
- [14:39]
Michael Calore
What does the telling of this story do to its audience? What can it do and what are the limits of what it can do?
- [14:47]
Haggai Levi
I'll tell you something. I come from a bereaved family. My brother died in the Lebanon war, in the first Lebanon War. And my sister, who just watched the couple of first episodes said to me, it was amazing for me to see that Abu Khadir family is just a bereaved family as we are. This is the same agony, the same pain. As simple as it is. You don't use to think about their loss or their agony. You think you use, even if you are very liberal and self aware. And I think that's something that people can see in that series, the pain in the other side and that and you know, and change just for a minute their position from, you know, and let the other be the victim for a moment.
- [15:51]
Michael Calore
Haggai and Topik, I want to thank you so much for the work and your time today.
- [15:56]
Tofik Abu
Thank you very much.
- [15:57]
Haggai Levi
Thank you so much. Bye.
- [16:01]
Michael Calore
Haggai, Levi and Topfiq Abu well, the 10 part series our Boys is on HBO now.
- [16:19]
Katie Drummond
I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's global Editorial director.
- [16:22]
Michael Calore
I'm Michael Colory, Wired's Director of consumer, Tech and Culture.
- [16:26]
Katie Drummond
And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show, Uncanny Valley is all about the people, power, and influence of Silicon Valley. At Wired, we're constantly reporting on how technology is changing every aspect of our lives. So each week on the show, we get together to talk about one of the biggest stories in tech.
- [16:45]
Michael Calore
Right? So whether we're talking about privacy, AI, social media, or a major tech figure, we will always explain the Silicon Valley forces behind these stories and how they affect you.
- [16:56]
Katie Drummond
Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.
- [17:06]
Michael Calore
From PRX.