85,000 Videos Released. Some of the Best. Must See.

British Pathé released 85,000 old newsreels to YouTube.  Bloggers and researchers have gone through the list as best they can and here are some about Israel/Palestine in the 20^th century on the ElderOfZiyon blog.  Truly great stuff.

If you go through the few selected videos, you'll notice the tiny size of the prayer area in front of the Western Wall (called "Wailing Wall" in the newsreel).  It's since been fixed.

Perhaps the most significant (so far) is this video, "Arabs Declare Holy War":

"Two states are being born", the narrator intones.  If only he knew.

At the opposite end of the importance scale, the filmmakers realize the only thing that shows up clearly on film are the various hats:

I watched a bunch of the films.  The silent films taught me something: You can't tell which side is which without either a narrator or clearly marked hats.  You can't even tell which war, which continent, or which year.  There is no way to tell aggressor from defender, winner from loser.  You can tell forest from desert.

For talking films, the strongest effect of the visual is to make the sound of the narrator authentic and believable.  You think you're seeing what is being said.  Sometimes you are, sometimes you aren't.

American Dr. Ralph Bunch, UN mediator, tells us "The war is over in Palestine", proving the effectiveness of the United Nations.  A lot of wisdom in 19 seconds:

A lot of wisdom, that is, if you can read between the lines.