Origin: Lebanon | Documentary | Director: Christian Ghazi | 56 minutes

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In 1970, Christian Ghazi and Noureddin Shetty intended to meet with some Arab politicians, especially Palestinians living in Lebanon. The result was the film Why Resistance? (1971). Here we get to know Ghazi’s personality and ideas, as well as the identity of everyone he met in the film. Ghazi met with Ghassan Kanafani, Sadiq Jalal Al-Azm, Nabil Shaat and other figures of the Palestinian revolution. For an hour, the director and activists touched on the history of the Palestinian revolution. They also trace history to the many strikes and popular demonstrations that took place in Palestine from the beginning of the Ottoman occupation, through British colonialism, until it was occupied by the Zionist entity in 1948.
In the title of the film, Ghazi asks about the resistance, its history, struggle and importance, and examines the goals of the Palestinian struggle. All his interlocutors stressed the need for an independent and democratic Palestine to exist and defend it with arms. Why the Resistance has a rich archive of photos and scenes taken in Palestinian refugee camps. Ghazi drew us a map of Palestine and from it determined how Palestinians were expelled from their homes, whether by land or sea. The film brings the tradition of armed cinema (alternative or third) to Lebanon, creating through it the spirit of the Palestinian struggle and asking how, by reading the past, we know what is happening in the present.
Christian Ghazi’s film continues the tradition of armed cinema (alternative or third) in Lebanon.

We see and hear Kanafani, Al-Azm and Shaat speaking in English with their faces motionless as the camera touches the walls of their office full of pictures of international fighters and revolutionaries. Their words are accurate, they know their history and their present, and they know exactly what they want and how to achieve it. They emphasize that the Palestine problem is not a problem of refugees, as presented to the world at the time, but rather a job that must be eliminated through armed struggle. In the film, Ghazi and the warriors invent new ways to interact with struggle, history and memory. Ghazi uses a calm form that serves and conforms to the essence, despite the anger and violence present in the dialogue and words. “While this film is nearing its end, at a moment in Palestinian history where everyone is suggesting that the dynamics between the Arabs and the Palestinian cause seem to have gone out of course… The Palestinian resistance is going through a process of searching for itself, seeking a new direction with the desire to achieve justice, because peace can only be achieved through justice. his film. He saw the future through the words of the militants. Everyone at Why the Resistance answers this question, as Ghazi reveals the special cinematic skills he used in serving the Palestinian cause.
Source: Al-Akhbar

In 2020 this movie has been restored and screened in the Sursock Museum and other places.