Promises Is a Documentary

Promises is a documentary that reveals the ongoing conflict over the region known as Israel/Palestine. The argument of who has the rightful claim over the region goes back several of years affecting everyone including these poor adolescents. Religion plays a big factor in this documentary as it does I'm many real life situations. A great example is Moshi one of the Jewish boys during an interview he states "God promised us Israel and the Arabs came and took it." As we can see Moshi is relying on his cultural beliefs. Jews and Muslims are monotheistic which, means they believe in one God, but both Jews and Muslims have contradictions of what their God told them about Israel/Palestine.

It is impossible for one God to promise the same land to both the Jews and Muslims. Moshi's Adolescent Egocentrism (Personable Fable) is seen when he stated; "If I could make my own future, all the Arabs would fly away. The Jews would stay and rebuild the Temple" while responding to a question about his thoughts of allowing Arabs into Jerusalem. Mahmound is a Palestinian boy that has shows nothing but Negative Identity, he is enraged and committed to negative identity choices. The worst thing I heard during the film was when he agrees to kill women and children and his reason is because they do it for their country. It is very sad to hear a boy so young speak this way, but unfortunately this is how he was raised to think. The best part is that when Mahmoud was interviewed at an older age, he agrees that peace between the Arabs and Israelis maybe possible if they just get to bond and know each other.

After watching Promises, I found myself going back to my adolescent years. During the very beginning of the movie the children are very close minded and want nothing to do with each other. Many times adolescents feel and act the way they do because of the way they have been brought up for example, my Father would always talk bad about African Americans and somehow inserted fear in me towards African Americans. As I grew up and developed Meta-cognition I started to monitor my own thoughts and beliefs and realized that my Father was wrong; today many of my closest friends are African Americans thanks to my commitment of making my own choices in life. As you can see this movie brought me back to my adolescent years and thankfully I decided to change my way of thinking as well as the kids in the movie.

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