- WASHINGTON - Even the title
is so emotion laden. It's OK to talk about "the Americans",
"the French", "the Israelis"..."The Kurds",
"the Bosnians", "the Catholics." We often hear references
to Christians and Muslims...to Hindus and Buddhists. But "The Jews"
has a particularly uneasy and troubling aspect to it -- this of course
going back to historical associations, to elements of Christian theology,
to the European holocaust....and yes indeed to Biblical times.
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- As the modern-day media crucifixation of superstar
turned Jesus story-teller Mel Gibson continues, a brief summary of the
situation in Hollywood is in order. First of course they brought great
pressure on Gibson to not go forward with the movie in the first place.
Then they tried hard to get the movie black-balled from distribution.
Next they put on the pressure to get the cut and script of the movie changed
(i.e., like the editing censorship that often goes on with op-eds and books
dealing with the Middle East and "The Jews" in the U.S. and Europe).
And now, with things having backfired and the movie taking off with fireworks,
the attacks on Gibson personally and on the extreme violence of his film
generally continue -- witness today's blockbuster assault in the New York
Times (itself long known as a kind of Israeli-centric heavily Jewish-influenced
'newspaper of record' in the city where more Jews now live than any other).
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- In the mid 1970s, there was a film titled "Children
of Rage" that depicted early-on the Palestinian struggle against the
Israeli occupation. There was a moving love story between a courageous
Jewish doctor and an attractive Palestinian woman. There was a thoughtful
portrayal of the situation Palestinian young people had found themselves
in, of harsh life in the refugee camps, of the increasingly bitter struggle
for freedom and Statehood. In the end there was much death, destruction,
and despair visited on all. Looking back, Children of Rage was very much
an early warning of the historic cancer which has since metastasized into
the Intifada, into the American occupation of the Middle East, and yes
into 9/11, the Apartheid Wall, and the desperation of suiciders.
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- Children of Rage was in fact written and directed
by an American Jew, Arthur Seidelman. It was a substantial motion picture
that opened in major movie theaters in New York, Washington, Los Angeles
and around the country. But the protests and pressures from Jewish organizations
were considerable, after a few weeks the film was crushed (never to return),
and the Jewish director was in a very real sense burned out by the whole
affair. Seidelman remained in Hollywood directing for TV and cinema but
he never again returned to the subject of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
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- In the 1980s a famous movie actor got interested
in the story of what happened to the U.S.S. Liberty in 1967. He investigated
a bit, held a few meetings with survivors, and went to top-level friends
in Hollywood to try to get a movie made, himself possibly staring as the
Liberty Captain. He not only failed. He was very explicitly warned
by the powers that be: "Don't even mention this again. If you even
try to go ahead with this you will never work in Hollywood again."
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- At the time of the first Palestinian Intifada another
famous movie star, this one Jewish, was asked for his support regarding
a statement being published in the New York Review of Books and other magazines
by Jewish professionals -- most lawyers, doctors, professors -- supporting
the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation and calling for
a suspension of U.S. aid to Israel until the Israelis ended the occupation
and stopped preventing a Palestinian State. "I definitely support
what you are doing, but I can't sign it" Ed Asner said. He added
softly, almost in hushed tones: "I'm a coward, I'm very sorry...my
agent would kill me."
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- A few years before, in the aftermath of Israel's
invasion of Lebanon and the early-on suicide bombings that drove the Americans
out of Beirut, a very high-level extraordinary meeting was quietly convened
near Capitol Hill in Washington. Brought together for the first, and for
the only time, were top representatives of the PLO, American Jewry, Congress,
and academia. In retrospect the purpose was to find a way to head off
what has now considerably worsened and expanded to become the "Clash
of Civilizations". Mossad-connected operatives were soon to visit
some of the participants, in private, one by one, including the high-level
host of the meeting. The warning was very blunt: "Your welfare,
your career, the future of you and your family are at stake. Hold no more
such meetings." Those who 'obeyed' were rewarded; the host with
a life-long appointment to a very senior position in Washington. Those
who did not comply were punished and black-listed. Though some of the
key participants very much wanted to push forward, no follow-up meetings
ever took place.
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- In 'modern' times crucifixtions take may forms
these days beyond the old Roman way of nailing to the public cross for
all to see and cower in excorciating blood and tears. Ironically, in a
world of instant mass communications and incessant news spam, deciphering
what is really happening may be even more difficult now than then.
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- As for Mel Gibson he has told a tale of Biblical
proportions, one that goes to the heart of Christian theology, and one
which in fact goes to the core of the Jewish predicament ever since those
days of the Sanhedrin and the history-changing Jewish schism that spread
worldwide from Jerusalem erupting into Christianity. Others can interpret
the scriptures, both old and new, in their own ways as they determine best
and true -- fair enough. But to try to relentlessly crucify Gibson for
trying to tell the story as he knows it, or rather as he believes it, is
in itself a kind of intellectual and political blasphemy. Rather Gibson
should be thanked for standing his ground, making his movie, telling his
story, and making us all ponder and think and feel...whether Jew, Christian,
Muslim, Buddhist, aethist...or just plain human.
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- * The author was Washington Representative of the World
Jewish Congress for eight years soon after he first came to Washington.
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