Palestine's Unapologetic Leading Man.

• Author: Mullenneaux, Lisa

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As Palestine's most recognizable actor, Mohammad Bakri has never chosen the safest career path. His four documentaries and one-man plays, not to mention his film roles, embrace the struggle of Palestinians for social and political justice. That choice has made the charismatic Bakri a target of censorship and lawsuits. Unapologetic, he says the goal of all his work--acting, writing, directing--is "to tell the truth about Palestine's history and to tell it, above all, to Israelis."

Mohammad Bakri was born in 1953 in the Galilean village of Bi'ina. "When I went to school in Galilee in the 1950s, the word 'Palestine' was forbidden," he says. "We only studied Israeli history and literature. It was as if the country did not exist prior to 1948. Of course, I heard stories from my father, mother, grandfather that contradicted what I was being told in school. As a boy, I felt something was wrong."

He knew he did not have equal rights. "In my village, before 1967, if people wanted to work outside the village, they needed a license from Israeli authorities," he says. "And if you were a member of the Communist Party--like my father and uncle--you would never get a license."

He graduated from Tel Aviv University in 1976 and began to act in Israeli film, stage, and TV. Costa-Gavras's 1983 film Hanna K. launched the actor internationally in a role sympathetic to the dispossession of Palestinians. Bakri plays Selim, arrested by Israeli authorities for trying to reclaim his family's home, now a tourist attraction in the Russian-Jewish settlement of Kafr Rimon. The story turns on the moral challenges faced by his court-appointed lawyer Hanna Kaufman (Jill Clayburgh), a child of Holocaust survivors. In a sign of controversies to come, the film was attacked as "anti-Israel" in the United States and pulled by its American distributor.

Beyond the Walls (1984) cast Bakri as Issam, a Palestinian serving fifty years in an Israeli prison for terrorist activities. As Jewish and Arab prisoners stop fighting each other to target their captors, Issam argues for reason and restraint. Beyond the Walls won seven Ophir Awards (the Israeli "Oscar"), including Best Actor for Bakri.

In 1991, Bakri gave a memorable performance as Ziad, the PLO leader, in Cup Final. During Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the PLO captures Cohen, an Israeli reservist soldier who would much rather be claiming his seats at a World Cup match in Barcelona. Ziad and his...