I make a distinction between herd mentality and solidarity, and so does, I believe, Hany Abu-Assad (the director). I read his film that I reviewed as a critique of such a herd mentality.
Solidarity in my book implies an individual choice of not sheepishly following the herd and its cultural tropes. Solidarity involves a choice that a person consciously makes to peg his/her interest to that of other people or society, as opposed to pursue those interests invidualistically and selfishly, regardless of others and society. Herd mentality, otoh, does not involve much of a conscious choice or, for that matter, thinking, but rather uncritical following the group and its the taken for granted tropes, beliefs, or expectations.
Yoshie:
> The only thing that Khaled walks out of is a suicide bombing
> mission. He's still living under the Israeli occupation,
> mediated by the Palestinian Authority and its Islamist
> challengers, from which arrangement he can't walk out. So,
> the audience doesn't know what will become of Khaled. For
> all the audience knows, he will get shot by an Israeli, die
> of lack of medical care due to checkpoints or unemployment or
> both, or what have you. The only major Palestinian character
> in the film who has an option to walk out is Suha -- she's a
> cosmopolitan from a wealthier family than Khaled's and
> Said's, who was born in France, grew up in Morocco, etc. If
> she stays in Palestine, that's her choice; if she decides to
> give up on non- violent resistance, she can probably get
> papers to go somewhere else and find a job.
I think you are mixing up the reality and the film. My understanding of _Paradise now_ is that it is a critique of the "culture of martyrdom" as a popular trope in Palestinian culture - rather than a story of Palestinian-Israeli conflict. If Assad wanted to do a story of that conflict he would have done a very different film. But he carefully purged his film of all obvious references to that conflict except those merely setting the realistic scenery for the action. Why would he do that, especially that if temptation to include a political commentary would be irresistible to most storytellers? Perhaps because he wanted to tell a different story - namely one about the Palestinians alone, and the dilemmas they face, rather than that about Palestinians *in relation* to Israelis.
And what he want to say about the Palestinian alone is evident when we consider why he introduced the Suha character. Her main (if not sole) function in the narrative is a counter-weight to the martyrdom trope followed by the two protagonists - so the main theme here is the tension between two Palestinian cultural tropes - the martyrdom trope and the struggle through political means trope. That is further hinted by the scene in the video shop with the lengthy dialog about martyrdom and collaborator confession videos being sold, and the scene of filming Khaled's statement.
The main drama in this film is the choice between these two tropes (not about walking out of Palestine, as you mistakenly assume) - and one of the protagonists (Khaled) does make that choice, or at least chooses not to sheepishly follow the martyrdom trope. The other protagonist chooses to pursue the martyrdom trope, albeit with considerable trepidations. That pretty much summarizes the situation of Palestinians as human agents as opposed to objects of someone else's power (which I understand is a stale trope firmly embedded in the herd mentality of the left ;)).
To reiterate this is a film about Palestinians as human agents not Palestinians as objects of someone else's actions - and it does reflect some of the dilemmas they face.
Wojtek