ABSTRACT
The representation of the Holocaust in Israeli cinema during the first decade of the new millennium, the period most relevant to our discussion, suggests ambivalence towards the legacy of the Holocaust within modern Israeli identity. This chapter analyses Waltz with Bashir an animated documentary produced by second-generation film-maker, Ari Folman. In all instances, the documentary format is given priority over the animation with the result that there is an implied responsibility for Folman about his alleged subject, namely Israel's role in the massacres. Nurit Gertz and Yael Munk assert that Waltz with Bashir takes 'Israeli guilt one step further' and stands out from other Israeli films that address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict precisely because it depicts the Lebanon war as it was experienced by the director. The chapter considers an alternative reading whereby the film's explicit discourse concerning the Sabra and Shatila massacres is destabilised by an oblique Holocaust narrative.
