Remember back in the days when insults were thought to be so reprehensible that a “gentleman” might be obligated to demand that a duel be fought in order to settle things once and for all?
An insult, in other words, could get you killed.
Today of course that is still around. But more so in some parts of the globe than others. There are still places where a man’s personal honor [or the honor of his family or his ethnicity or his God] is simply not to be trifled with.
In Beirut, Lebanon for example. Between a Lebanese Christian and a Palestinian refugee. Tony and Yasser. An insult that lands the men in court; and then snowballs into a “media circus”. An insult that goes all the way back to the 1975 Lebanese Civil War.
In other words, in Beirut [and still to this day], everything often revolves around the neighborhood that you are in. Different neighborhood, different rules.
So, how then does “the law” factor into all of it?
Bottom line: the lessons learned. About, among other things, religious and political and ethnic prejudices. As one reviewer put it, “Our own prejudices and preconceptions alter our views and reactions, often preventing us from standing in the other fellow’s shoes.”
And to think all of this begins here: “While Tony waters flowers on his balcony, the overflow sprays Yasser on the street below.”
And then amidst all of this public drama the personal lives of all the characters get wrenched to and fro. Their lives come to revolve not around what is necessarily true or just, but around what one is necessarily expected to say and do in any particular situation. Justice here is often only one or another political and religious and ethnic contraption. Everything gets all tangled up in prefabricated personal, political and religious narratives that can go back literally centuries.
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Insult_(film
trailer: youtu.be/QEQDZL6bAXo
The Insult [L’insulte] 2017
Written in part and directed by Ziad Doueiri
Speaker [at a rally]: If they ask you who’s your President, tell them our President is Bachir Gemayel. The Christian Party…The Christian Party is like the Bible. You know, in the Bible, there’s the Old Testament, and the New Testament. In the past, we used to say, only the Christian Party protects Beirut. Today, what do we say? The Christian Party supports the State!
God and the state. The rest is history.
[b]Yasser [after getting sprayed with water]: There’s a problem with your gutter. We need to look at it.
Tony: What kind of problem?
Yasser: People are getting sprayed.
Tony: Use the other side of the street.
…
Shirine [Tony’s wife after Tony broke the new pipe Yasser installed]: What’s going on?
Yasser [down on the street to Tony]: Fucking prick!
…
Talal [general manager of construction company]: Mr. Tony, from what I understand, your drainpipe was sticking out, he was trying to fiX it, but you broke it.
Tony: That’s my balcony, my house.
Talal: City Hall asked us to fix all building violations. Your drainpipe is illegal. He’s only doing his job.
Tony: That’s no reason to insult me.
Talal: Of course not.
Tony: He thinks he’s a hotshot. He’s not! I’m warning you, he’d better apologize, or I’ll sue him and your company.
…
Talal: [to Yasser]: We’re in their neighborhood. We can’t talk to them like that. We have to put up with them. He wants you to apologize. He’s waiting. Do it, then fix his drainpipe.
…
Shirine: When will you finish?
Talal: In two months. That’s why I hired Yasser. He gets the job done. He has a tough job. He’s a bit moody. He gets carried away, but he’s harmless. You know, life has become difficult. People are angry. That’s why we should put things in perspective. Tell Mr. Tony that Yasser is sorry. And he presents his apologies.
…
Tony listens to a speaker on TV: “Because of their corrupt leadership, the Palestinians have become despised everywhere. Let them find another land to live in, other than Lebanon. Let them establish their own state, let them rule themselves, let them scatter in the Arab world. They may unite with Jordan, they may run to Iran, as long as they don’t stay here.”
…
Wife [of Yasser]: What complaint? What happened?
Talal: A misunderstanding with a tenant. Nothing serious. If the cops intervene, it’ll be a problem. I want to resolve this.
Wife: What’s going on?
Talal: It’s about a gutter. Your husband goes to fix it, the tenant breaks it. He gets water on your husband, who calls him a fucking prick. The tenant wants an apology.
Wife: Which came first: the gutter or the prick?
…
Yasser: What shall I do, bend over?
Wife: Show some appreciation.
Yasser: I’m nobody’s servant!
Wife: That’s selfish. The world’s not plotting against you.
Yasser: We are targeted.
Wife: Who’s we?
Yasser: Me, you, all of us. We’re the niggers of the Arab world.
…
Talal: Mr. Tony wants to turn the page. He wants to hear it from you.
Tony: You know what? You people are lousy bastards. Otherwise, you would’ve apologized. That explains your bad reputation. As the Jews say, “Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
[Yasser turns and walks away]
Talal: Yasser, what’s wrong with you? You want to get fired? I’ll do it. I swear.
Tony: I wish Ariel Sharon had wiped you all out!
[Yasser lunges at him and punches him in the ribs]
…
Eli: A Christian suing a Palestinian? No lawyer will take this case. No one would dare.
Tony: I don’t need a lawyer. I know I’m right.
Father [of Tony]: No, you’re not. You’re not right at all. What you said is unacceptable. That’s how wars start.
Tony: Dad, are you saying he’s right?
Father: I’m saying you’re wrong. He just wanted to fix your gutter, but you humiliated him.
Tony: You’re blaming me for a gutter? They fucked up this country, and you blame me for a gutter?![/b]
And around and around they go.
[b]Tony: Tell me why can’t you go in there?
Policeman: That’s how it is. We aren’t authorized to enter Palestinian camps.
Tony: What authority do you have?
Policeman: It’s political.
…
Wife: You insulted the police.
Tony: No, I insulted the situation.
Wife: “I wish Ariel Sharon…” How could you? To a Palestinian?
Tony: You don’t understand. It’s normal for you, but not for me. You think it’s a perfect world?!
…
Talal: Drop your case. He gets out of jail and everything will be fine.
Tony: You still defend him.
Talal: Because he’s a decent man. He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t belong in jail.
Tony: We don’t solve this thing by pretending we love each other. That’s not how it works.
Talal: It could.
Tony: I’m no Jesus Christ who’ll turn the other cheek.
…
Judge: Why don’t you have a lawyer?
Tony: Because I’m right.
Judge: Just because you say so doesn’t mean it’s true.
…
Judge: Mr. Yasser, you’ve been renovating buildings there for five weeks now. How do residents treat you?
Yasser: Well.
Judge: You know that in this town, every area has its own sensibilities, political, religious. Have you taken this into account?
Yasser: Yes.
Judge: How?
Yasser: I asked my workers to pray in a car park, to offend no one.
Judge: The fight with Mr. Tony is the first one you’ve had.
Yasser: Yes.
Judge: So why after five weeks of friendly relations, did you call Mr. Hanna a “fucking prick”?
…
Judge [making his ruling]: You broke the law by having an illegal pipe and breaking it after he fixed it. Case dismissed!
Tony: Not fair, Your Honor!
Judge: You may go, Mr. Yasser.
Tony: You’re biased. You’re acquitting a criminal.
Judge: Leave the courtroom.
Tony: Not before I get a fair trial.
Judge: Get out or I’ll have you arrested.
Tony: For what? You’re a corrupt judge and a fraud. I will sue you. I’ll have you barred from this court and from every other court! It pays to be Palestinian! It pays to be Palestinian!
…
Wife: You weren’t expecting it. Since neither of you told the judge the whole truth.
Yasser: The truth is I hit someone because of an insult.
Wife: If it were that simple, you’d still be in jail.
Yasser: The judge was biased. It’s just that it was in my favor.
Wife: No, he understood it was about more than a gutter.
…
Shirine: How could you say that to the judge?
Tony: He was a biased judge.
Shirine: Appeal, but don’t insult judges.
Tony: They’re all in cahoots. The Palestinian was gloating the whole time.
Shirine: I didn’t see that…He didn’t tell the judge what you said!
Tony: Because he had the verdict in the pocket.
…
Company owner [of Yasser]: Who is he?
Talal: The foreman.
Owner: Palestinian.
Talal: I know, it’s illegal.
Owner: You know where I stand on this issue. I’m with their cause. I share their grief. But not at the firm’s expense.
…
Wajdi [Tony’s lawyer]: We heard about your day in court. What you told the judge was ballsy.
Tony: I got carried away.
Wajdi: How could you not? An injustice was committed. But do me a favor, never go to court without a lawyer.
Tony: I didn’t want to sue, counselor. All I wanted was an apology.
Wajdi: And he refused. You gave him ample time to apologize, and he beat you up. That’s unacceptable. He beat up a Lebanese citizen. We cannot accept that.
Tony: He pleaded guilty.
Wajdi: To get an acquittal. Those people are sneaky, deceitful. They know how to turn the tables round. Aggressors paint themselves as victims, and you know who they learn it from.
…
Tony: I don’t care about money.
Wajdi: What do you care about?
Tony: When we’re done with him, I want him to say I’m 100 times worse than Ariel Sharon.
Wajdi: Let me ask you a question, why did you say, “I wish Ariel Sharon had wiped you all out?”
Tony: What’s the big deal?
Wajdi: If the judge asks you, how will you answer?
Tony: It felt right to say it.
Wajdi: That’s not a good argument. Those words are loaded, Mr. Tony. What you said is very complex.
Tony: I don’t understand.
Wajdi: The Palestinian cause is a whole different ball game. There’s the UN, the NGOs, the humanitarian organizations…Everyone roots for the Palestinians. And don’t forget, there are those who hate us. The Left, the liberals. By the way, many are Christians. They’d all be willing to skydive just to defend Yasser Salameh. It’s trendy to defend those people…I want you to think carefully about what you said. That’s what they’ll focus on in court, not who spilled water, who beat whom, or who’s the fucking prick, but why you said, “I wish Ariel Sharon had wiped you all out.”[/b]
Meanwhile on the other side of town…
[b]Nadine [lawyer for Yasser – and Wajdi’s daughter]: Mr. Yasser, what I’d like to know is why you didn’t tell the judge what your opponent said?
Wife: My husband isn’t a snitch.
Nadine: No one will judge your integrity in a court.
Yasser: I called him a fucking prick.
Nadine: You can’t compare prick with Sharon wiping you all out.
Yasser: He said, “I wish”.
Nadine: What’s the difference?
Yasser: He could have said: wiped you out, beat you up, or loved you. They’re just words.
Nadine: So why were you upset? Those words change everything. They insult your nationality and identity. It could be considered a hate crime.
Yasser: Everyone hates and insults everybody.
Nadine: Insulting someone’s identity is punishable by law. It means you can sue him.
Yasser: But I hit him.
Nadine: Because of what he said. Plus, he asked you to apologize. You went to do that…According to Article 228 of the penal code, even if a perpetrator exceeds the bounds of self-defense, he may be acquitted if he acted in extreme distress that hampered his judgment and self-control.
Yasser: Forget my distress. His child is fighting for her life.
Nadine: That’s why you need a lawyer…Your opponent is appealing for his and his wife’s health complications. If his baby dies, that’s involuntary manslaughter. We’re looking at ten years. You can manage this situation or let it manage you.
…
Shirine: I want those people out of my life.
Tony: Wajdi Webb has the case. We’ll win.
Shirine: I don’t care who wins. You let a stupid incident take hold of you.
Tony: I won’t drop the case. Never.
Shirine: You go to court, you win, the guy gets life. Then what? And your baby? What about her? Did you ask her what she wants?
Tony: It’s for her. I’m doing this for you, for the family.
Shirine: You’re doing it for yourself!
…
Yasser: Did you have to?
Nadine: It’s scientific evidence.
Yasser: That’s not right.
Nadine: You’re accused of a crime you didn’t commit.
Yasser: We’re prying into private lives. We’re exposing them in public. It’s not right!
Nadine: What is right? They do it to us, we do it to them.
…
Wajdi: So basically, you hire Mr. Yasser, you help him out, and then he betrays you.
Witness: Yes. I was very hurt. He was ungrateful.
Wajdi: Ungrateful?
Witness: I took a risk when I hired him. You know, when you hire a Palestinian, you get accused of trying to settle half a million Palestinians here, and you know what that means.
Wajdi: No, can you explain?
Witness: You give Palestinians jobs here, they won’t return to Palestine. The Israelis are happy, which makes you a traitor.
Wajdi: Thank you. No further questions.
…
Nadine [plays a tape of a speech from TV]: “For the sake of your children, so they don’t end up living like the Palestinian refugee, and behaving like the Palestinian refugee, wandering the world, ruining everything in his path, drinking from our wells then spitting in them.”
Nadine: That morning, Mr. Yasser went to Mr. Tony to apologize. Once he heard that speech, he changed his mind.
Wajdi [for Tony]: I find it patriotic.
Nadine: For a Palestinian, it’s offensive.
Wajdi: Offensive? We often hear: “the road to Palestine runs through Beirut”.
Nadine: My client didn’t say this phrase.
Wajdi: Neither did my client! We hear speeches all the time. Incendiary speeches, subversive speeches, sexist speeches…We live in the Middle East. The word “offensive” was born here. It’s not up to Mr. Tony to consider people’s sensibilities. That’s their problem, not his.
…
Nadine: I wish to reveal the words that pushed Mr. Yasser to hit Mr. Tony.
Judge: Go ahead.
Nadine: The words are: “I wish Ariel Sharon had wiped you all out.”
Voices from the courthouse: Yes! He should have! Take that back! That’s disgraceful!
Judge: Order in the court!
…
Nadine: Mr. Tony, did you know these words violated Mr. Yasser’s dignity and identity, and are a hate crime?
Wajdi: Hate crime? For a humiliation? Which humiliation is this? The one in 1948? 1956? The Six-Day War? The Yom Kippur War? The 1982 War? They’re all humiliations. My client can’t be blamed for those mishaps.
Nadine: The Palestinian tragedy is not a mishap.
Wajdi: It was not a mishap, it was a catastrophe!
…
Shirine: Your lawyer is pretentious. It’s ridiculous.
Tony: He’s putting up a good fight. You don’t like it because you live in denial.
Shirine: You’re just his puppet.
Tony: He lets nothing slide without contesting it.
Shirine: Really? Why did he say the Palestinians were a catastrophe?
Tony: He got carried away.
Shirine: I don’t get it. A famous lawyer, who defended the party’s leader, decides to take on a trifling case? For free?
Tony: For you, it’s a trifle. For me, it’s everything.
Sirine: How so?
Tony: It’s about the truth.
Shirine: Which truth? You provoked and insulted this man. You hurt yourself working.
Tony: Really?
Shirine: I was publicly humiliated because of both of you![/b]
Then back in time: 45 years.
Nadine: Mr. Mohamed, what you call the Jordanian Civil War is known as Black September, right?
Mohamed: It was a civil war. Many Palestinians live in Jordan.
Nadine: History remembers it as Black September. The Jordanian army hit Palestinian refugees, killing more than 3,000, mainly civilians, and based on recognized criteria, this is a massacre.
Mohamed: The militias were hiding among civilians. We had no choice.
Nadine: Then, your army decided to eradicate the PLO at any price.
Mohamed: They tried to assassinate King Hussein. They were a state within a state, they launched cross-border attacks. They endangered the whole country.
Nadine: Mr. Mohamed, you say you were a cook. Yes. But you were in the army. Did you wear a uniform?
Mohamed: Yes.
Nadine: Yasser Salameh had no reason to believe you weren’t a soldier.
Mohamed: I was serving them food.
Nadine: The Jordanian Army attacks a refugee camp, indiscriminately kills civilians and militants, then decides to feed those who survived. The oppressor humiliates the oppressed with his generosity. In this conteXt, Salameh saw a soldier take a piece of bread from a child, his blood boils, he attacks the soldier. My client isn’t the bloodthirsty man you describe. No! Yasser Salameh can’t just stand there while injustice happens. The proof is he refused to repeat Tony Hanna’s words, though it would have been in his interest. He didn’t do it because those words are humiliating. He didn’t do it because those words are humiliating. Tony Hanna’s words made my client act in extreme distress and pushed him to lash out. Penal code, Article 228: even if a perpetrator exceeds the bounds of self-defense, he may be acquitted if he acted in extreme distress that hampered his judgment and self-control.
So, what constitutes justice here?
[b]Wajdi: Did Tony Hanna use a bullhorn to say, “I wish Ariel Sharon had wiped you all out”? Did he spray graffiti, call the press?
Yasser: No.
Wajdi: So when he said those words, it was in private.
Yasser: Yes.
Wajdi: Therefore, no publishing. No libel, no crime. All my client did was express a “wish”. He said, “I wish”. Is a wish a crime? What’s next? My thoughts? My dreams? If I dreamed I killed you, am I guilty? Where do we stop?
Nadine: We are not judging thoughts and dreams, but words.
Wajdi: All he said was, “I wish Sharon had wiped you all out.” Are his words going to push Ariel Sharon to wipe the Palestinians out? Sharon doesn’t need Tony Hanna’s permission. The words of my client were spoken in anger in a dispute. Were they harsh? Yes. But that’s it. He was exercising his right of freedom of speech.
…
Wajdi: The defense points to the Palestinians’ despair, as if they were the world’s only oppressed people. And the Armenians? The Kurds, the gays, the gypsies, artists, street vendors? Who isn’t deprived of rights? I don’t see them beat each other up.
[he turns to Yasser]
Wajdi: Mr. Yasser, just because you’re a refugee, a victim with no country, that gives you no excuse to be violent. Even if you are the most oppressed person, it doesn’t make you the spokesman of morality and justice! And why all the fuss? Because Palestinians get wiped out? Because Mr. Tony said these words? No. The reason is Sharon. If Tony Hanna had said, I wish the Eskimos, or the Smurfs, had wiped you all out, we wouldn’t be here debating! Nadine: Eskimos and Smurfs are not the point. The counselor is sidetracking us.
Wajdi [to the judge]: When a Jew does it, it’s a crime, but when an Arab kills an Arab, it’s OK. As long as we keep it in the family, right?
Man in back of courtroom: The Jews did worse! You right-wing scum! Don’t talk about Palestinians! You’re a traitor!
Wajdi: Oh, sure! Only Christians committed atrocities!
Man in back of courtroom: You collaborated with the Jews.
Wajdi: With the devil too! No apologies! We were the resistance.
Man in back of courtroom: Don’t mention the resistance, you dirty dog![/b]
The courtroom erupts.
Tony [on the phone]: Why bring the Jews into this?
Wajdi: These were your words, not mine.
Tony: I’m being called an Israeli sympathizer.
Wajdi: You started the whole thing. What did you expect? A walk in the park? This is war. Waged in court. I asked you, are you up to the task? You said yes.
Tony: I didn’t want it to be political.
Waldi: You came to me, no? When I asked what you wanted, what did you say? "When we’re done with him, “I want him to say I’m 100 times worse than Sharon.” If you can’t handle it, I’ll drop the case.
Then all hell breaks loose [in the media, on the streets] as the case becomes the focus for any number of religious and political agendas.
President: I’m told you’re both decent people, love your families, work hard. I work hard too: squabbling deputies, water shortages, power outages, trash collection, two million refugees, terrorists sneaking in. Where is this country headed? I’ve asked you to come here to put an end to all this.
Yasser: That’s why we’re in court, Mr. President.
President: How about we resolve this out of court? You know, lawyers like to drag things out, to show off. They have huge egos. They don’t care about you. They’re working hard. But they’re not helping you reconcile. You must set aside your differences, for your country’s sake.
Tony: Which one, Mr. President? They hate this country.
President: We live in the same country. We’re brothers.
Tony: No, we’re not.
Back again to the past. January of 1976. The Damour Massacre: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damour_massacre
[b]Judge [after Tony and his father leave the courtroom]: Counselor, what just happened?
Wajdi: What did we expect? The footage put him in “extreme distress”.
…
Yasser [alone with Tony at his garage]: How many ribs did I break? Two? I just patted you. You know what’s your problem? You talk too much. You drove everyone crazy, lit this place on fire, because you talk too much. You just can’t keep your fucking mouth shut. Listen, your little show in court today was pretty pathetic. What did you want to prove? That you’re the victim? Victim my ass! Everyone knows who Lebanon’s Christians are. You talked about defending your country while you lived in your fancy beach villas. You played the tourists during the war. Shopping in Paris, skiing in Switzerland. You eat sushi. You speak French. Half the bombs that fell on you didn’t have detonators. You don’t know what suffering is. What a bunch of cry babies!
[Tony lunges at Yasser and punches him in the ribs]
Yasser: I’m sorry.
…
Nadine [to the court]: Forty years ago, a massacre took place in Damour. A heinous massacre. Thousands of families had to flee. Mr. Tony Hanna was among the lucky survivors. What happened back then remains buried. The perpetrators unpunished. No justice. No closure. Nothing. We can understand why Tony Hanna said those words to Yasser Salameh. He wanted revenge. For Tony, Yasser is guilty, guilty by association. We’ve all been through hard times. We let our emotions get the better of us, like Tony Hanna and Yasser Salameh. Yasser Salameh also reacted to words that targeted his identity, his history, his people’s history. When one goes too far, and those words did, one must expect a reaction. It’s normal. It’s inevitable. It’s human nature.
…
Wajdi [to the court]: There was an article this morning about a US senator who insulted a flight attendant. She asks him to turn his cellphone off. So he calls her a bitch. The White House reacted. Finally, the senator issued a public apology. I wonder if this could happen in this country. If it’s ever possible to settle a dispute in a respectful manner, and consider an apology is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of decency. That’s all Mr. Hanna wanted. An apology. Plain and simple. The defense maintains that Tony Hanna’s words targeted Mr. Salameh’s identity, his history, and his people’s history. So he hit him. If Yasser Salameh is a refugee, so is Tony Hanna. Even more, a refugee in his own country. His life has been marred by the same suffering, tragedy, and injustice. The only difference is we’ve never showed Tony and many others the compassion they deserve. On the contrary, we’ve silenced them, ostracized them, while we know all too well what happened to the Palestinians. We talk so much about your cause, there’s no room left for anyone else. What happened in 1976 in Damour, Jiye, Sadiyat, and Nahme, we’re not allowed to talk about it. But what Tony Hanna said to Yasser Salameh, it’s allowed. The truth is they’re the product of an old wound that has never healed. What’s happening in this court is a beginning to consider and accept the other. Something must be said, something relevant, fundamental. No one has a monopoly on suffering, Your Honors. No one.
…
Reporter [on TV]: All eyes are on the Court ofAppeals. The verdict is imminent. From north to south, the army is on high alert…The verdict in the Hanna vs Salameh case…A reminder of the tough last two months the country has been through…Judge Colette Mansur allowed the public to view the proceedings. Will the verdict change Palestinians’ situation in Lebanon? Could this trial set a precedent by examining old Civil War wounds? Will either side accept or appeal the decision to the Supreme Court? Will this verdict spark more rioting in the streets? This case now closes after having profoundly rattled Lebanon. It has fueled waves of violence and brought back memories of the Civil War.
…
Judge: Plaintiff and defendant, please rise. This seems like a cut-and-dry case, but in reality it’s not. This is a case that involves two people who each claim to be the victim. Words were uttered, and an assault was committed. You each believe you were in the right. The issue is which of you is at fault, or more at fault. Do the words outweigh the physical aggression, or are they equally incriminating? Basically, a physical assault is unacceptable. You can’t take the law into your own hands, except for clear and imminent danger, meaning self-defense. At the same time, does an insult carry the same weight as physical assault, when the insult is demeaning and hurtful? At one point, we were tempted to find you both guilty. But based on the evidence submitted by both lawyers, we had to go back to how it all started. By virtue of majority vote, two for, and one against, this court finds Yasser Salameh not guilty.[/b]