Two Bellevue men set out last year to capture the thoughts of the people on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the West Bank and Jerusalem, seeking out those committed to peace.
“I do have hope and am deeply committed to working on this the rest of my life,” said Andrew Larsen, a pastor and professional photographer in Bellevue. “I still call it a hobby, but it’s a pretty intense hobby.”
Larsen has been to the West Bank and Jerusalem several times — for three months in 2011 as part of a human rights advocacy group — and wanted to document the views of Jews and Palestinians who only want to live in peace.
“Most people felt that they didn’t see it coming any time soon,” he said. “It’s what they longed for and aspired to.”
Larsen tapped his friend and Seattle television news veteran — turned independent film producer — John Yeager to join him as his cinematographer on his 10-day trip in November. The two met years ago while both were attending the Pine Lake Covenant Church in Sammamish.
“I needed five seconds to answer that one,” Yeager said. “I always wanted to go, but I didn’t want to go as a tourist. … We went over at a time where every day there was a riot.” The day they arrived a Palestinian had killed a border patrol officer and injured 14 people by ramming them with his car. Larsen said he approached making “Blessed are the Peacemakers” with an objective lens, speaking to everyday Israelis and Palestinians, as well as leaders of groups seeking peace.
“I have a perspective now,” he said, “but I do try to suspend it.”
Groups in the independent film — being edited now to make the spring festival circuit — included the Parents Circle-Families Forum, which pairs grieving Israelis and Palestinians who have lost family in the ongoing conflict as a process of reconciliation and achieving peace. The nonprofit received the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award in 2010.
“There’s no one simple solution,” Yeager said. “What we found is there are all different people with an idea about how peace is possible.”Larsen describes his main focus of work in the Puget Sound area as interfaith bridge building, having a strong relationship with Muslims in the Bellevue and Kirkland communities. He said many were surprised when they heard he was making a documentary while others were supportive and interested.
“Some are careful; they’re very reticent to voice their opinion,” he said of the local Muslim community. “Many Muslims are profiled here.”
Larsen said injustice is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, noting older Palestinians he knows remember the two coexisting fairly well before Israel gained statehood in 1948.
“Those of that generation long for that still,” he said.
Many Palestinians are left fighting to keep their land and subjected to routine searches at the numerous guarded checkpoints in Jerusalem, Yeager said. The two Bellevue men, who rode Palestinian buses during their trip, were not subjected to such searches.
“It’s a daily humiliation that these people have to live with,” Yeager said.
A teaser of “Blessed are the Peacemakers: A New Look at The West Bank and Jerusalem” is available here. Yeager and Larsen are now considering making another documentary in Tehran, Iran.
