B.P.R.
Brilliant Punitive Raids is a video of a sequence of photos with audio that zoom in on the personal experience of two involved Israeli soldiers and the unsettling contradiction between their make-believe play of two people in love and their cold-blooded killing of the Palestinian PLO military strategist Khalil al-Wazir aka Abu Jihad in 1988 near Tunis, in front of his wife and children.
An installation in three parts
Video (one channel HD, color, sound, 10 minutes)
Photographic prints
Print: The Folded Image of Khalil al-Wazir, A3 historical texts
Shot on location in Tunis and Tel Aviv
Brilliant Punitive Raids springs from the fascination with the as equally adored as detested PLO leader Khalil al-Wazir, better known as Abu Jihad, and his assassination in 1988 in Tunis. The attack on his life instantly made Abu Jihad into a martyr and hero, however, in the Western world his life and death did not become part of the collective memory.
‘The Abu Jihad operation may make us feel good, may be good for our egos, but it does not in itself really address the weighty problems this country should be struggling with. The killing of Abu Jihad is a symbolic illustration of what is happening to us. It was an operation made for a nostalgia movie about the good old days of brilliant punitive raids – because it does not advance us one inch towards a solution of the problems that have produced this or that “Abu”.’
> Columnist Yoel Marcus commented days after the assasination in 1988 in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The Folded Image of Khalil al-Wazir
A3 historical media texts
< Khalil al-Wazir in front of his villa in Sidi Bou Saïd, near Tunis (set remake 2013)
Archive images of Khalil al-Wazir and his unsolicited alter ego Tom Selleck alias Thomas Magnum. As a young boy, I watched the American series that dominated Dutch TV series. That’s how Magnum P.I. became my televised hero. I found many similarities between Khalil al-Wazir’s images and Magnum’s fictional character.