Exodus (1960)

Writer: Ali Tohamy Editor: Youssef Fahmy

Ali Tohamy is a writer interested in history, cinema and propaganda.

Exodus is an American film produced in 1960 and is based on a book by the same name from author Leon Uris; it highlights a seminal period in the process of the creation of Israel as a nation-state. It tells the story of Jewish holocaust survivors that are held by the British at an internment camp in Cyprus. The survivors are eager to escape this camp in order to move into Palestine to get their independence with the help of Captain Ari Ben Canaan, a Haganah rebel who was part of the Jewish Brigade of the British army during World War II. From then we move into Palestine where we see the difference between the methods of the Irgun and the methods of the Jewish Agency, a Kibbutz (Jewish communal settlement) and some historical moments like the bombing of the King David hotel. The film was able to drum up much needed support for the Israeli state and help reshape Americans opinions on the then controversial state. Exodus was able to portray the fight of Zionists of that of freedom and inequality and relate this to the biblical sense of the Old Testament and the American idea of freedom.

Each character in the film represents a certain aspect of the overall Palestinian conflict. Ari, the main protagonist, is portrayed as as Jewish hero who leads his people to independence, while Nurse Kitty Fremont is the outsider who is sympathetic to the cause (also an American!). We are also introduced to a young Danish-Jewish girl named Karen, who lost her father during the war, which was a recent memory to the audience at the time, and is searching for hope in the Zionist movement and Israel. As the film progresses it becomes more obvious that Karen is the daughter of Israel, and is symbolized by the young generation of Jewish people escapingWorld War II. In Palestine, we are introduced to Kibbutz Gan Dafna, named after Ari’s old love interest who was killed by Arabs, one of the few portrayals of Arabs in the film. The original book was published in 1958 and one of its biggest fans was David Ben Gurion, who was the 1st Israeli prime minister. Ben Gurion praised it as the best piece of propaganda written about Israel and this is not a coincidence. Leon Uris, the author of Exodus was purposely sent to Israel by a PR consultant to write a book that could establish a more pleasant view towards Israel. The book became America’s biggest bestseller since Gone With the Wind; and 40 years later, Edward Said still credits the book as the producer of a dominant narrative towards the Arab-Israeli conflict in the USA.

In order to understand the historical setting, we need to look at both the British and the Arabs. The British in the film are depicted as an obstacle to the Zionist project. They prevented the immigrants from reaching Palestine and were attacked by both Jewish and Arab fighters in the 1920s and 1930s due to them being viewed as oppressors, and this was due to the infamous “White Paper” that sought to restrict Jewish immigration into Mandate Palestine, which angered many Jews and Zionists alike, while Arabs saw the British as foreign occupiers. In addition, Arabs are not represented except for Taha, who donated land to the Jews and Arab fighters fighting against Israel, providing a onesided perspective that we still see to this day. All that we learn about Arabs who are not Taha is that they are against establishing a Jewish nationstate. Eventually, Taha is hanged by Arabs in a scene for aiding the Jews and has the word “Jew” and a Swastika marked on him. This felt like an implication that Arabs who aren’t Taha are like Grand Mufti Mohamed Amin al Husayni, the infamous Grand Mufti who had meetings with Adolf Hitler during World War II and was pretty influential when it came to the “Final Solution” for Jewish people. The historicity of some aspects in the film could be questioned, but the film still has connections with historical currents of Zionism. Seeing that the film is about the birth of Israel and the armed process at times, there are shades of radicalism within it, particularly from Zionist thinker Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who stated that Israel can only be established through violence and the armed struggle and claims that the Arabs are the main instigators of violence. A historically accurate point in the film is about the Zionist-British relations as it is true that the British wanted to restrict Jewish immigration by 1938 with the White Paper. It is also true that some Jews fought for the British during the war and like Ari contributed to the birth of Israel.

One aspect of the film is the comparison between Jewish and Arab leadership. The Jewish have two main factions of different ideological thought, but unified goal: The Haganah and the Irgun. The Haganah are depicted as a less radical faction, who believe that the creation of the state of Israel can only come through Jewish migration to Palestine while the Irgun believe that Israel must be created through direct violence against the British and Arabs. While different in thought, in Exodus, they reconcile against the Arabs as the film nears its end, depicting a “riding off to sunset” scene that was appreciated by many Americans who are fans of such clichés. On the other hand, Arabs were depicted as Nazi supporters (even featuring an SS officer, which is hugely inaccurate and only serves as a fictional threat by portraying Arabs as Nazis), backstabbers, and ununified. This is blatantly expressed in a scene featuring the Haganah trying to break their comrades out of the Acre prison; while some members saw that this will free many Arabs and Jews alike, our protagonist Ari simply dismissed as: “600 Jews will go into one direction, and that is with us. While 600 Arabs will go into 600 different directions.” The film even depicts an American woman who would become Ari’s lover and Ari would take her into the mountains and share with her biblical stories and how he appreciates Christianity as they share similar beliefs.

You could imagine that this will not sit well with an American audience. With Exodus scoring high reviews and box office revenues worth an impressive $28 million dollars, one can imagine that films like Exodus have portrayed Arabs into views similar to that of the present day: backwards, “undemocratic”, divided, and prone to autocratic tendencies; a view that is still commonly seen today. The rhetoric of films like Exodus and any other future “historical” films must be carefully examined to avoid films having imperialistic or propagandic tendencies that can affect international politics and even generations into dangerous fallacies and stereotypes.