Independence Day

Do you remember that great movie Independence Day? When aliens try to take over our planet, destroying everything in the process? Well, there's a scene that my kids used to love acting out whenever they could squash their faces up behind a plate glass window. You may remember it: when the jelly-like alien tightens its tentacle around Dr Okun’s throat, thrusts his face against the Plexiglas lab wall and uses the scientist’s own voicebox to communicate with President Whitmore on the other side of the glass. This is the scene from the original script:

INT. MEDICAL LAB - SAME

The President has moved closer to the glass and is talking
with the alien. The alien uses Okun like a ventriloquist's
dummy.

PRESIDENT
Why did you people come here?

OKUN/ALIEN
Air...water...your "sun."

PRESIDENT
Where do your people come from?
(no answer)
Where is your home?

OKUN/ALIEN
Here...now.

PRESIDENT
And before here?

OKUN/ALIEN
Many worlds...

PRESIDENT
Can we negotiate a truce? is
there room for co-existence?
(no answer)
Can there be peace between us?

OKUN/ALIEN
Peace? No peace.

PRESIDENT
What do you want us to do?

OKUN/ALIEN
Die.

I have often thought how similar this is to Israel’s predicament. An alien nation called the Palestinians comes out of nowhere, takes a look at the paradise Israel has created in 50 years and declares that it’s now their home. They set about subduing it with violence, blowing up whatever they can in the process. They don’t communicate directly. Instead they put the world in a stranglehold of terror and use the UN and the EU as their voicebox.

Can there be any peace?

No peace!

So what do they want of Israel?

To die.