The Palestinian
1977 television film directed by Roy Battersby
The Palestinian (Arabic: الفلسطيني) is a 66-minute TV documentary from 1977. It was produced by and starred Vanessa Redgrave, and directed by Roy Battersby.
Plot
The documentary is about the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) and the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The film features an interview with Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the PLO, as well as testimonies from the survivors of the Tel al-Zaatar massacre.
Production
In an interview with Adam Higginbotham for the Daily Telegraph in 2012, Vanessa Redgrave revealed that she funded the documentary by selling her house that she shared with her three children, Natasha Richardson, Joely Richardson, and Carlo Gabriel Nero.
Release
The documentary was first screened for television producers in New York City in October 1977.
Controversy
When attempting to put The Palestinian on television, Redgrave contacted Joey Adams for some assistance. Adams, who was Jewish, was reportedly so upset that he not only hung up on Redgrave, but told outlets such as The New York Post and The Jewish Week about the phone call. Adams alleged that Redgrave said Israel was a "fascist nation and must be dismantled if peace is to come to the Middle East". In a call with the Chicago Sun-Times, Redgrave said those were Yasser Arafat's words and not her's.
The public source identifies “The Palestinian” as 1977 television film directed by Roy Battersby. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Palestinian, television and film.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7755949. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1977 and 2012.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Palestinian” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.