The children in the movie "Promises" changed a lot after their encounter with B.Z. After seeing the movie, I have fully understood of the conflict that is really happening in Israel. When I was a bit younger, about two years ago, I had heard about the conflict that was going on in Israel. I didn't fully understand what exactly was happening.
I don't know if many things would have changed since then, but probably they have since Hamas's party came into power. Many Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip support Hamas because it helps the poor, runs schools, and has a say in the Palestinian government.
Mahmoud was one of these people. At the beginning of the film, Mahmoud had very restrictive opinions about Israelis. He said things like "It is okay if the soldiers (terrorists) kill women and children because then at least there will be no more Israelis left". Harsh statements like this were common to Palestinian children. Mainly to Mahmoud, every Jew was like an Israeli.
B.Z. helped him understand that not all Jews are what he thinks. At the end, Mahmoud says that they should take some steps towards peace. This is a big change from his first opinion. For Moishe, it is the complete opposite. Moishe doesn't want to meet any Palestinians. At the beginning, he thinks that "it's okay if the Israeli soldiers miss at the shooting range, they might hit an Arab".
At the end he says that adults should talk to each other to make peace, but he is not the one to do that. Shlomo's opinion basically stays the same throughout the movie. The burping scene has some significance because it is when Shlomo and a Palestinian boy are friendly with each other. Shlomo thinks that there should be peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis, but the children shouldn't be friends. His opinion basically stays the same until the end of the movie.
Sanabel is passive all along the movie. The Israelis had put her father into prison for he was supporting Hamas. Even though she says that she hates what the Israelis did to her father, she really says it in a compassionate tone, as if she cares about the Holocaust. Her opinion at the end is that Palestinian and Israeli people should have peace and meet with each other. She thinks that even the children should do that, meet and connect.
Faraj hates Israelis. When he was younger he had experienced the death of a friend by an Israeli gun during an Intifada. His grandmother brings him to the spot of his old house, before his family was deported to the refugee camp. This burns anger in him to see that the Israelis knocked down their houses and didn't even do anything with the land. His meeting with Yarko and Daniel changes things. In the end he also believes that Palestinians and Israelis need to connect for there to be peace. He even calls some Israelis to have friendly conversations.
Yarko and Daniel are both nonreligious Jews. They are scared of religious Jews, "especially the one with the beard". They both are kind of passive, and don't care about the Palestinians. They are more focused on sports and other things. When they meet Faraj, they realize they aren't much different because they both like sports.
At the end, they say that they weren't able to return any of Faraj's calls because it would really be pointless. They think that they need to focus more on sports and other things than Palestinians. Basically, all the children had a big experience when they met B.Z. Most of them changed their opinion, but some of them didn't. I think that Palestinians and Israelis should have total peace, and there should be no terrorist or army attacks. That way, they will have peace.
