The purpose of this documentary, The Wanted 18, which is woven from a variety of film materials (animation, news footage, home movies, interviews, reenactments), is, by way of a silly but real story involving a herd of cows, to expose the deepest root of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict: the economic dominance of one nation, Israel, over another, Palestine. Remove this economic logic, and then much of the sad and very long business of that part of the world makes little to no sense.

This is why when the main subjects of this documentary, Palestinians in the town of Beit Sahour (it’s not far from the place Jesus is said to have been born, Bethlehem), bought in the 1990s a herd of cows from a kind Jew, it became a major concern for the Israeli military.

Why? Because the cows represented economic self-determination, which if left unchecked could lead to more and more economic independence for Palestinians. Worrying about a bunch of cows is only silly if this economic logic is absent. Anyway, the documentary has its moments and is informative; however, I did not get into the talking cows.