Hebrew University

Mount Scopus, Jerusalem

A breathtaking view from the campus. Wide angle shot coming into one building. Slow moving shot into EXAM ROOM with old-fashioned desks. Students writing and checking their watches. An instructor in shirt and tie mopping his forehead and fanning himself at the front desk. We focus on one student – young, handsome, in full military attire. Sure of himself. Even taking an exam.

A young MAN, also in military attire, comes into room and whispers to the professor, who nods and points to the student. He walks over and, after a moment, the student gets up and walks out with him. 

They drive, the student in back. They pull over by a military compound not far from campus, then both get out and make their way to an OFFICE. The student is about to sit when another aide motions him to come in. Before him is a short, bald man with oak clusters on his shoulders. On his desk is a folder with photographs. We see the same PHOTO of the family from the bombing.

The student sits. They talk, appearing to agree on something. Reluctantly, on the part of the student. The student walks back out, looking back up towards the examination building he just left.  

Qibya in ruins: the response to the Kanias bombing 

The Palestinians leave the ruins of their town in the aftermath of a reprisal raid by Sharon's Unit 101 on Qibya, the Israeli response to the murder of Susan Kanias and her two children by terrorists.

Scene 1. Susan Kanias

Home of Susan Kanias

Yehud

Sunset. A ramshackle house on a hill with reeds blowing in the wind. Cicadas chirping on a moonless night, sky thick with stars. We move closer to a WINDOW with curtains fluttering, where we enter into a neatly kept ROOM – it could only be the room of a young girl. A lazing CAT guards a PHOTO on the nightstand of a radiant WOMAN, flanked by her daughter and son. We pass from the nightstand to the bed, where the girl is listening wide-eyed to the woman – it’s storytime. A CANDLE lights the darkness of the room and gives a heavenly haze to the pair, and the transaction. The MOTHER is tired and dirty after another day in the orange groves, but her eyes are full of love for her child as she reads out of a storybook.

The GIRL motions and asks for something, and the mother reaches over and hands her a glass of water. We then follow the camera across the room the way we came back outside of the window and across the yard to an

ORANGE TREE,

Where we see a DARK HAND pluck an orange off of the tree and peel it, smelling it before he eats. He looks at the WINDOW, then over at his FRIEND. They are dressed in grubby robes, with greasy haversacks and furtive expressions. They inch towards the house, getting closer and closer. We PAN BACK to the

ROOM,

Where we see the CANDLE go out and the room go dark. The MEN see the

MOTHER walk into the KITCHEN, then back into her DAUGHTER’S room. Their fingers loosen the straps of their bags, and they go up gently to the WINDOW, tossing the charge in as silently as they can.

The GIRL wakes up, understanding immediately, as the

HOUSE

Goes up in flames and the MEN run away.