“The struggle with the occupier will be long; this is why our school children have to be well fed.”
Resistance Recipes comprises four resistance stories centred around cuisine and agriculture in the West Bank. Poignant and insightful, it affords the viewer an insider’s view of how Palestinians are affected by the occupation, the separation wall, and the checkpoints that control the flow of travel within the West Bank. It also brings into focus the main issue of the conflict, not religion or politics, but the ownership of land.
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The film takes the viewer to the ancient village of Battir with its terraces and thousand year old irrigation system, one of the oldest in world.The water from which is shared between eight major families in a fair, eight-day rotation. This has been done for countless generations and continues to this day. Battir is also the home of the famous Battiri (of Battir) aubergines, delicious when stuffed because of their narrow oblong shape. Having been spared from uprooting in 1948 and 1967, the people of Battir now live in fear that a separation wall will isolate them from their cultivated land.
Hosh Yasmin is an organic farm in Beit Jalla, located close to the city of Bethlehem, and surrounded by an ever-growing backdrop of settlements, encroaching on its land. Mazen Saadeh, the owner of Hosh Yasmin is a refugee who hails from Jericho. He recounts the hunger he faced as a child in refugee camps, this, he humorously says, is the reason he now does not settle for anything other than the best when it comes to his food. Using his home-grown vegetables, organically farmed, and lovingly cultivated, he will not have to deal with store bought Israeli produce, as long as his land is not confiscated as part of the expansion of the encroaching settlements.
These are only two of the stories recounted in Resistance Recipes. With accounts from greengrocers in Jerusalem’s Old City, to the initiatives of a women’s farmer’s market cooperative, Resistance Recipes succeeds in portraying not only the struggles but also the triumphs of a people under occupation.
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