The Human Factor

As the title of the film suggests, it tells a story involving as much human drama as geopolitical maneuvering. It’s a story of personalities and, at times, the fragile male ego.

The Human Factor is as much about modern day America as it about Israel and Palestine, and how much we have to lose when we give into the easy temptation of demonizing those who think differently—even if it’s as a result of listening to Tucker Carlson.

Fans of The West Wing will really dig it. Director Dror Moreh rarely lets the news headlines intrude on the backstage bartering.

Moreh’s approach creates a surprisingly comprehensive, if (by design) one-sided, American-centric view of the peace process. Interviews and archival materials have a means of immersing us in the backroom discussion.

From the blow-by-blow ticktock of the efforts of Secretary of State James Baker during Bush the elder’s administration to Bill Clinton’s failed Camp David summit, they push The Human Factor into surprisingly suspenseful territory, even if we all know how it ends.

The Human Factor presents a cogent and involving view of the Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, mainly from 1991 until the end of Bill Clinton’s first term, told through the recollections of United States negotiators charged with brokering a peace.

Moreh offers no analysis — an especially unfortunate stance given explosive feelings and wildly variable interpretations of events. Finally, the film pushes the deeply disquieting assumption that the United States knows what’s best for those troublesome people in the Middle East, whose tantrums kiboshed all the hard work and emotional investment put in by the sainted Americans.