My Terrorist

London, August 1978: a bus with crewmembers of the Israeli airline company El Al is attacked by Palestinian terrorists. Fahad Mihyi is arrested and convicted following the deadly assault, Yulie Cohen Gerstel survives the raid. The fragment that landed in her arm is used as evidence during the trial. Now, twenty-three years later, Gerstel has decided to help release Mihyi, who is still in jail; even if she takes a pill everyday for her hypo-thyroid and hesitates to let her children go out on the street alone. Other Israelis blame her for supporting terrorism, but she feels that the circle of violence has to be broken. Gerstel used to be an officer in the Israeli army, but she quit, when under the Israeli occupation in 1982, Moslems were killed in Lebanon. Now, she and a group of photographers visit the Palestinian territories - the photos are shown in the documentary. Illustrated by phone conversations, letters and conversations with advocates and opponents, Gerstel’s motivations become clear. She quotes from the autobiography of her great-grandfather, who already denounced the Zionist attitude towards the Palestinians. Nevertheless, Gerstel still doubts whether she should help a former terrorist, especially when she watches TV and sees the World Trade Center in New York collapse. The documentary offers a crash course in the violence-ridden history of Israel, from the Six-Day War to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at the same time demonstrating how drastic a terrorist attack, committed on political grounds, is for those involved.