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David Remnick Blogs About ‘State 194’
Palestine’s Man in the Middle
Last night, a few hours after the United Nations General Assembly voted to give Palestine nonmember observer status in the international body—a move that the Times described as an “upgrade”—the Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, flew coach from New York to Washington, D.C., in order to see a movie about himself.
The film, an Israeli-directed documentary called “State 194,” is almost dreamily hopeful—capable, at times, of giving you the sense that this endless, corrosive, cruel, and seemingly intractable conflict is in its final stages. “If you are a Palestinian you have no choice but to be optimistic,” Fayyad says on camera. At another point, he says, “We are at the final turn to the homestretch—the homestretch to freedom.”
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