Promises

This is by far the best and the most painful documentary I have ever watched. The documentary is surrounded by 7 kids; 3 Palestinian Kids and 4 Israeli kids and their views on the conflict.

The documentary was filmed after the first Intifada between 1997 and 2000 when things were rather calm.It was too pure and painful to watch kids at the age of around 10 talk about the conflict, their fears, their bitterness, their anger and their hopes.

You have a religious orthodox jewish boy who believes his torah is like a tank, a defiant jewish boy who believes his land and that the area he lives in hate arabs and that if he ever befriended an arab, his friends would call him a wimp. The very same boy lost his friend. He also wants to grow to be the first religious chief commander. Disturbing to hear that coming from a 10 year old boy if you ask me.

Then you have two secular jewish boys who were rather balanced yet they speak of their fear everytime they get on a bus but how they are also afraid of the religious jews.

Then comes the other side, a Palestinian girl (who I thought was really intelligent and compassionate), her father who is a journalist is in jail and it takes her almost 6 hrs to go see him for 30 mins. Another Muslim Palestinian boy who lost his friend and is so bitter that he never wants to meet any Jew kids.

Another Palestinian boy who is just as bitter but as the movie progresses, he and the Palestinian girl along with two of their friends meet with the Twin Jewish boys. It was very touching, how they would play together and there was a geniune want for peace from both ends.It was terribly sad to see the Palestinian kids constantly reminded of how they are confined within their territories, checkpoints everywhere - even from one Palestinian village to another, the bullet holes everywhere, their losses etc... and the Israeli kids under constant threat from the so called terrorists.

I watched it 4 times this weekend. That's how much I loved it. There's also an update on the DVD on the kids, the two Jewish boys enlisted themselves with the Army, one of the Palestinian boys is now in Massachussets, the other Palestinian boy is more open minded now but what was disturbing is how incredibly right wing the defiant Jewish boy became.

Overall - THE BEST documentary I have ever watched.