Wings of Peace
A Two-hour Documentary Special from Vision Media Productions
If you would like to know more about this film or are interested in supporting it, please contact us. Our hope is that this film will draw attention to the perils that threaten the environment in Israel and Palestine and thereby help protect millions of birds that live and migrate along the Jordan River. But most importantly we believe that this documentary can give hope for and advance peace in the region. |
Can environmental passions trump traditional geo-politics? In the heart of the Middle East, two improbable allies from opposite sides of the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict have found unity in a greater cause – saving the birds and environment of their homelands. Set against the stunning tableau of these exotic lands, WINGS OF PEACE tells the unlikely tale of how their mutual effort to protect the environment is fostering cooperation where politicians have failed.
Located along the Great Rift Valley – the main bird migration corridor between Europe and Africa – the skies above Israel and Palestine are filled twice a year with as many as 100,000 eagles, 600,000 storks, and over a million hawks and falcons. It is an amazing spectacle that has taken place for millennia…but the political instability and economic development of the region threatens the safety of these and other magnificent creatures.
In 1998 leading Israeli ornithologist Dr. Yossi Leshem established a group called “Migrating Birds Know No Boundaries” to help protect and preserve this vital migratory super highway along the Jordan River. Imad Atrash, Director of the Palestine Wildlife Society, joined the campaign. The two slowly overcame their mutual wariness, realizing that their personal concerns for the environment led to the incontrovertible fact that each needed the other. They would work together to raise the awareness of their fellow country people about birds and the loss of habitat.
The harsh realities of Middle Eastern politics, however, constantly challenged them. For example, although they lived mere miles apart, strict security laws required the pair to travel to neutral sites just to meet. But still they persevere.
WINGS OF PEACE reveals the many layers of this complex story. Dr. Leshem is world renowned for his conservation work, but because Israel does not have diplomatic relations with most of its neighboring governments he is limited in his ability to advance a region-wide agenda. He must rely on his Palestinian friend, Imad Atrash, to act as his liaison in the Arab world – spreading the environmental message to countries like Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria.
But ironically, as Mr. Atrash counsels other Arab and African nations on developing their environmental programs, his own local program is still in its infancy. Environmental preservation programs are generally a luxury for developed countries, not easy to sustain in lands where people are struggling to survive. Atrash’s work in Palestine involves such tasks as educating housewives about herbs they might grow in the gardens for home use and for sale. Palestinian students like Zade Qumsieh and Merna Banoura, the only female bird bander in all of Palestine, are eager to pursue environmental careers, but the realities of living in occupied Palestine mean that they may not be able to. Many educated Palestinians decide to leave the Territories, hampering its economic development.
Despite these limitations and more, Leshem and Atrash have forged a deep friendship and powerful scientific alliance that continues to produce successful campaigns for environmental sustainability. Recently, when Jordanian farmers noticed an alarming increase in crop damaging rodents, they turned to the duo for help. Determining that the problem was a decline in the number of predatory owls, Leshem and Atrash enlisted the help of General Mansour Abu-Rashed - the former head of Jordanian intelligence – to appear in a media campaign to teach Jordanians that the nocturnal hunters were not bad luck, as traditionally believed, and that they should not be hunted. Then Israeli farmers and scientists traveled to Jordan to show how to attract and nurture a healthy population of these natural predators.
But the movement is at a critical crossroads. 
Both men wonder if their vision can be expanded to other parts of the region. And who will lead the next generation? Leshem and Atrash now plan to take their vision one step further by bringing together students from Jewish, Arab, and Palestinian schools for interactive field study. Leshem knows that the idea works – he successfully started such a program in the 1990s, but had to shut it down when the 2nd intifada began. Is the time right for the program to begin once again? Will their respective governments allow it? WINGS OF PEACE will be there to film the effort to organize this historic meeting. Whether they succeed or fail, the show will have a powerful and telling climax.
An exciting mix of intimate fly-on-the-wall drama and spectacular nature photography, the film follows the duo as they tackle their latest “impossible” project – physically bringing together Palestinian and Israeli students - interweaving this day-to-day drama with the men’s personal histories and the impact they are having on tangled Middle Eastern politics and on the delicate regional ecosystem.