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The firm Borrowed Identity is a book that is based on life of a young man Eyad, who is an Israeli-Palestine. His brilliance is demonstrated when he wows his community by answering a riddle in the television. Eyad gets a scholarship to one of the most elite Israeli boarding school. Although he is reluctant to accept the scholarship, his father; who had spend more than two years in Israeli prison encourages him to take it and study hard. “You can be the first Palestine to build an atom bomb†he encourages him.

Before entering the school, Eyad’s father tells him that although the Palestine people longed to defeat the Jewish, they will now have to live side by side with dignity. In school he is looked down upon by his fellow youths and he experiences a hard time as he tries to adopt. It becomes hard for him to deal with his Arab identity and Israeli nationality as students keep making fun of him. The fun changes once he meets up with Naomi (Daniel Kitsis), an incredible, beautiful, and gregarious classmate who helps him overcomes his Arabic accent and they end up being in a secret relationship. The kind of love he gets from Naomi makes him fill comfortable in a place where for a long time he was treated as an outsider.

Eyad helps Naomi with her chemistry school work in return. The two ends up meeting at a café for their secret relationship. Eyad is assigned to Jonatan (Michael Moshov), a Jewish student suffering from muscular dystrophy to which he is required to be paying visits. The two ends up being close to one another as they are considered as outsiders. The two friends realize that they both have a love for rock music which they spend some time listening together.

Jonatan’s mother Edna (Yeal Abecassis) is grateful for Jonatan’s presence and kindness as her son’s condition aggravate. In school Naomi and Eyad keep meeting and their loves grows deeper. Things however start getting complicated. Nevertheless Eyad excels academically which makes him earn trust from his classmates and starts selling falafel and bagels among his peers. In one of their English classes, they declare their love affair and how they were planning to let the whole world know about it.

Once Naomi informs her parents about her Palestine boyfriend, she is no longer allowed to go back to school. On the other hand, Eyad drops out of school and tells the principal to inform Naomi’s parents to let her go back to school as he is no longer there. This decision angers his father who no longer welcomes him home. With no home to go to, he decides to seek job and finds a flat in East Jerusalem. After many unsuccessful job applications he finds a job as a dish washer in one of the hotels.

Jonatan’s mother welcomes Eyad to live with her as her son’s health was worse. Eyad realizes that he he resembles Jonatan and uses his ID to secure a job as a waiter. Although Jonatan’s mother finds out, she allows him to use the ID provided no one came to know about it. Eyad takes final exam as Jonatan and scores the highest for both of them. Naomi ends up serving in the army.

Jonatan passes after a while and Eyad (posing as Jonatan) informs the authorities and both Eyad and Jonatan’s mother attends his funeral. Paradise Now follows Palestine childhood friends Said and Khaled who get recruited as suicide attackers in Tel Aviv. The film on major parts, focus on what would be their last days together. Their trainers who are from a resistance group tell them that the attack will happen the following day and they start preparing. They record videos glorying God and biding their friends and relatives goodbye.

They shave off their hair and beards to appear normal and dress in suits to look like Israeli. They agree to use attending a wedding as their cover story. With explosives belts on and only their trainers with the key to remove the belt without detonating it, they are instructed to blow up the bombs in the intervals if fifteen minutes to make sure that the second explosion kills the police. Upon their advent they have to run away from the border guards who were checking them. Khaled returns to their handler and the belt is removed safely, however his friend Said is nowhere to be found.

A search warrant is issue to find Said before the end of the day. At one point, Said thinks of detonating the bomb but rethinks after seeing children in a bus. In the long run, Said reveals his reason for taking part in the suicide mission. He tells Suha, a woman he had loved, that his father who was working as a collaborator working for Israeli (given that he was a Palestine) was executed for his action. He tells that the Israeli took advantage if his fathers weakness and killed him.

Khaled is finally able to find Said who is lying in his father grave about to blow up himself with the bomb. Together they return to their trainers and Said is able to convince them why the attack had not to be canceled as he was ready for it. They both decide to travel back to Tel Aviv. Khaled is influenced by Suha to cancel their attack after she discovers their plan. Khaled tries to convince Said to cancel the attack but he is able to shake him off by pretending to agree.

The film ends with Said seated in a bus carrying Israeli soldiers. Slowly zooming into his eyes and suddenly cutting it white. The two film having different set up and characters; do show the real situation that is there between Israeli and Palestine. From both movies, it is clear that there exists a bad blood between the two countries and its citizens. The bad blood between the two nations has not been successful even after long and numerous efforts being employed to see the two nations at peace.

The key issues are; mutual recognition, borders, security, water rights, control of Jerusalem and Israeli settlements (Rabinowitz 2001). Though efforts are being employed to see that the nations are at peace with each other there has been no much success (Rabinowitz 2001). This bad blood has gone down from generation to generation. From our film A Borrowed Identity Naomi is stopped from going to school as soon as the parents learn of the origin of her boy friend. Furthermore Eyad is viewed as an outsider due to the fact that he was a Israeli-Palestine.

In addition Said is motivated to involve himself in suicide mission to kill innocent people to avenge his father who was a victim of the hatred between the two nations. Although both films gives then picture of hatred, there still exist some sparks of love between the youth that can be used to heal the long existing wounds. In A Borrowed Identity we see Naomi and Eyad loving each other and helping each other in their studies. They are not afraid to let the entire world know of their affair. Although Eyad faced a lot of opposition and rejection Naomi takes him for who is.

In Paradise Now Suha is not ready to see innocent people die. She tries to convince Khalid and Said to abort their suicide mission. In conclusion, efforts should be put in place to see that the bad bloodline between the Palestine and Israeli is buried and there is a new era of love and peace between the two nations.

References

• Rabinowitz, D. (2001). The Palestinian citizens of Israel, the concept of trapped minority and the discourse of transnationalism in anthropology. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 24(1), 64-85.
• Eran Riklis - Film: A Borrowed Identity
• Hany Abu-Assad - Film: Paradise Now
• Smith, J. (2019). Perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 45(3), 102-118.
• Klein, R. (2018). Love and conflict in Israeli and Palestinian narratives. Peace Review, 30(2), 123-135.
• Gordon, N. (2020). Youth and cross-conflict relationships in Palestine and Israel. International Journal of Conflict and Violence, 14(1), 67-75.
• Fischer, M. (2017). The role of film in reconciliation processes in the Middle East. Media, War & Conflict, 10(2), 153-169.
• Al-Haq, M. (2015). Israeli settlements and the future of Jerusalem. Human Rights Watch.
• Barakat, R. (2022). Water rights and resource management in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Water International, 47(4), 390-404.
• Levinson, N. (2021). The impact of narrative conflict in shaping peace efforts. International Peacekeeping, 28(5), 731-749.