Screenplay: Moshe Hadar

Director: Ivan Langel

Cast: Dina Doron, Yiftach Spector, Shimon Israeli, Ehud Banai (as the eight-year-old), Sinaia in the role as herself  

The movie "Sinaia" describes the tragedy of an Israeli jet pilot who must bail out over the Sinai as his jet begins to crash. He soon discovers that his downed plane killed a group of Bedouins. The only survivors were a severely burned woman (Dina Doron), her 5-year old son (Ehud Banai), and a baby daughter (Sinaia). The pilot takes care of them as best he can. Another Israeli officer comes and wants to kill the Bedouins, but the pilot will not let him.

Based on true story, two days before the close of the Sinai Campaign (Operation Kadesh), 1956, a little Bedouin girl was saved by IDF soldiers. The soldiers found on the scorching desert the body of a young Bedouin woman lay sprawled in the sand. Her dead hand was clutching desperately to her baby girl. The bullet that killed her mother had passed through and penetrated the young baby’s lung. She was rushed to a nearby field-hospital and was put in the care of Dr. Albert Bachar.

The baby was later brought to Kibbutz near Eilat. At the home of Joseph Levy, later mayor of Eilat, life defeated death in the feverish little body. There the unknown girl was given her new name "Sinaia". Later, Dr. Bachar, brought her to his Jerusalem flat, to live with his family, hoping to legally adopt the baby. His application awakened nationalist sentiments among several Arab notables. Finally, Sinaia was adopted by Knesset member Faris Hamdan, from the village of Baqa al-Gharbiya. Her name was changed from Sinaia to "Sena", an Arabic name that means "Light". As an adult, Sinaia married a Bedouin doctor from the Negev and proudly raised a family.

"The precious life saved in the midst of the horrors of war and desert," wrote David Greenberg, "sparked the imagination of screenwriter Moshe Hadar, editor of the Air Force Magazine. Usually, Hadar devoted himself to humorous scripts. This time he deviated. Although, the plot he developed is far from the facts, Hadar weaves around the image of the baby, a drama of assassination between two Israeli soldiers, who are caught in a remote Bedouin tent in Sinai – where only one mother survives with her two children. One of the two soldiers wish to abandon the mother and children without giving it a second thought, leaving them to die in the desert. His lifetime experiences taught him the concept of hate. The other soldier refuses to accept this viewpoint, and his love of tolerance and the need for compassion toward the local Arab population wins even when he himself falls a victim."

Roger Ebert, the American film critic, wrote about Clouds Over Israel  (April 13, 1967), "Here is an unpretentious, moving Israeli film that has crept into town with such stealth…such a bald summary of the plot does injustice to Moshe Hadar's screenplay, which is concerned with the ways in which the soldiers and the Bedouins discover each other as human beings rather than "the enemy." Some of the subtitles are unnecessarily thematic (as the soldier bandages her arm, the woman thinks, "Could this be our enemy?"), but the over-all effect is convincing and touching…Surely the very point of the film itself is that such super-nationalism becomes irrelevant among people who understand each other. If you can arrange to arrive five minutes late and avoid the commercial, ever, you can anticipate a moving and authentic film experience."

In one Israeli newspaper, the critic wrote, "a human affair – as a movie," he continues, "and the screenwriter – the muscular, Moshe Hadar, who is worthy of being called, ‘The Screenplay # 1 of Israel’ because of his seniority and the plethora of screenplays and short screenplays he had written, said: 'In the film, we intend to give two perspectives on the Israeli Arab conflict. More precisely, the relationship between Arabs and Israelis. Two extremist point of views are battling each other in the film and only one is victorious: the one that advocates a fair and good humane attitude."

In an article by M. Ben-Yosef (Ma'ariv, August 28, 1961), he writes, “Moshe Hadar explains that his intention in the film was to raise the issues of the Jewish-Arab relations. The soldiers, Dan and Uri portray the two extreme vertices of Israeli youth to this issue. Dan is more humane, willing to help regardless of the religion and race of the needy. Uri was educated to hate the Arabs who hurt his family. His negative trend of fear and suspicion takes over, even as he faces an Arab woman and her helpless children. The violent tension between the two young soldiers raises baldly the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Arabs. At the end of the film, the recognition is highlighted that through understanding and mutual help you could find the path to enhanced better relations, coexistence and shared society. 

As we read Pommy’s words, spoken so many moons ago, one can hear and vividly see an image of the humane and inclusive man, which some of us were fortunate enough, to know up close.