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6 March 2006

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JEWISH HOLLYWOOD:
PARADISE NOW as well as MUNICH both lost and 'minimized'


The director of Paradise Now, a film centering on two
Palestinians preparing to carry out a suicide bombing,
said he believed pro-Israel lobbying would in the end
cost him the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

MER - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 6 March: While AIPAC storms away in Washington targeting Iran at this year's annual conference which began yesterday -- and further whipping up the flames of the 'Clash of Civilization' it helped so much ignite -- the powerful 'liberal' Jewish community on the West Coast in Hollywood was exercising its power as well.

Paradise Now - nicknamed Hell Now in Israel - not only was nearly totally minimized but it was the only film that didn't come from a country, which is this case is Palestine. And rather than calling it 'Occupied Palestine' or 'Occupied Territories' it was in the end said to be from a place that doesn't exist except in the Israeli lexicon, 'the Palestinian Territories'. Well...American Indians would certainly understand all this; but then nobody watching the Oscars last night would even know there was such a thing as an American Indian.

Not only does the powerful American Jewish community enjoy wielding its power on both coasts in the USA these days but it has a closer than ever working alliance with Israel's leading newspaper, Ha'aretz, as well. And that's where this take on what happened last night was nearly instantly published -- clearly with advance understanding and preparations for what happened just a few hours ago in considerably Jewish Hollywood.

Oh yes, no tribute either to that Lion of Hollywood at the 'Jewish' Oscars, to the man who was just about the only major Arab American film-maker in their midst; though Jon Stewart did noteably made a number of 'Jewish' jokes and illusions throughout the evening.  Mustapha Akkad was blown up last year in a terrorist attack at a hotel in Amman -- what more excuse did they need?  Akkad was continuing his own cinematic coup fantasy quest to make a blockbuster Hollywood epic movie about one of the most legendary Arab heroes in history, Salaadin.



So what if the Jews run Hollywood?
By Bradley Burston


Ha'aretz, Tel Aviv - 6 March: You could hear it right away. The grumbles about how the Jews run Hollywood, how the Israelis tell them what how to think, what to exalt, what to censor.

How if someone dares depart from the party line on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or the Holocaust, or the Jewish leadership in the time of Jesus, the forces of retribution will visit ruin upon them and upon their distributors domestic and foreign.

In remarks published two days before the ceremony, Hany Abu-Assad, the director of Paradise Now, a film centering on two Palestinians preparing to carry out a suicide bombing, said he believed pro-Israel lobbying would in the end cost him the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

"I can write off an Oscar win right now," Abu-Assad said.

"The Oscars are a complex matter, and I believe that in the end, if there is a close call, what will work against me will be two or three conservatives, even if the majority votes with its heart."

For his part, Steven Spielberg faced an unaccustomed storm of Jewish protest when he released Munich, which raises questions about Israel's assassination policy in the fight against terrorism.

"So many fundamentalists in my own community, the Jewish community, have grown very angry at me for allowing the Palestinians simply to have dialogue and for allowing Tony Kushner to be the author of that dialogue," Spielberg told Newsweek last month.

According to Spielberg, "'Munich' never once attacks Israel, and barely criticizes Israel's policy of counterviolence against violence. It simply asks a plethora of questions. It's the most questioning story I've ever had the honor to tell. For that, we were accused of the sin of moral equivocation. Which, of course, we didn't intend - and we're not guilty of."

It was only natural, then, that when Steven Spielberg's Munich failed to win the Oscar for Best Picture, and when Paradise Now lost out as Best Foreign Language film, the predictions of battalions of anti-Semites and radical Muslims were borne out.

So what?

In fact, so what if Jews rule Hollywood? So what if they always have?

Leave aside, for the moment, the historical context, the fact that immigrant Eastern European Jews, rejected and dismissed not only by the White Anglo Saxon Protestants that actually ran and still run things, but also by the German Jewish aristocracy of New York, sought - and built - a promised land in a direction opposite to this one.

They went to the very edge of the world, a semi-arid basin of orange trees and chicken ranches and, yes, anti-Semites. They remade the world from scratch. The invention of movies was the algebra of the 20th century.

Were they mercenary and money-grubbing, uncouth and ruthless, sappy and shallow and sentimental and insensitive? Were they ever. And why not? They were, after all, in a headlong hurry to become, for lack of a better term, Americans.

And so to the present case. A few vignettes:

The Academy ruled last week on a petition by a group of Israelis who had lost children to Palestinian suicide bombings. The group asked that Paradise Now be disqualified. The Academy accepted a petition with more than 32,000 signatures, but denied the request.

Yossi Zur, whose teenage son Asaf was killed in a bus bombing, said "What they call 'Paradise Now' we call 'hell now', each and every day."

"It is a mission of the free world not to give such movies a prize."

Certainly, Zur's feelings are more than understandable. However, if Hollywood has really taught us anything, it is this: The mission of the free world is to make money.

It has also taught us something else. Hollywood Jews are no good at making films about Jews. It took a Nebraska-born Anglo-Saxon Protestant, Darrell Zanuck, to finally tackle anti-Semitism in a film, the 1947 Gentleman's Agreement, which he made over the vocal objections of Hollywood's corps of Jewish studio moguls.

Another of the controversies that studded the run-up to the Oscars was a debate over the exact country which Paradise Now was representing. Abu-Assad maintained throughout that, just as it had been in the Golden Globes, the film should be designated as an entry from Palestine.

Indeed, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences initially referred to the film on its Web site as a submission from Palestine. But lobbying, negotiations, calls fpressures and endless conferences yielded the decision that the film would represent the Palestinian Authority.

That decision infuriated Abu-Assad, who called it a slap at the Palestinian people and their national identity.

"It's not like suddenly if you change your name, you didn't exist before," he said Tuesday. "If it's (Palestine) under occupation, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

In the end, the film was listed as representing the Palestinian Territories.

It might be noted, that in many cases the example of Gentlemen's Agreement has worked to the advantage of the Muslim and Arab world for years, as Jewish executives, editors, producers, reporters and others in the news media bent over backwards to serve up the Palestinian and Arab cause in as flattering a David versus Goliath pose as possible.

The fact is, that it took brutal, self-defeating, inhuman terrorism on a global level to level the playing field, so that Jews, even the settler villains of foreign news set pieces, could be portrayed as human beings.
Monday, 6 March (22 days to Election Day)

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March 2006


Magazine






More on the debate about 'The Israeli Lobby'
(March 27, 2006)
The Harvard Study, now sans the Harvard seal and with an extra disclaimer, has generated considerable debate and interest. The following exchanges have much useful and interesting information...

All About 9/11 And The Doubt, Skepticism, Disbelief
(March 25, 2006)
When Hollywood celebrity Charlie Sheen came out last week the events of 9/11 and since have come under a greater 'credibility gap' than ever. This review of all the doubt from the current issue of New York Magazine is a very useful and interesting article, even if the skepticism is considerable, some parts quite incomplete, and the focus not always clear. But it sure makes for good weekend reading! And if you missed it a few days ago read the MER Editorial and review in "The Mother of all Hoaxes? Part II."

Israel - Next Target of al-Qaida?
(March 23, 2006)
Major media stories are mushrooming, just in advance of the Israeli election, about: Israel Fears That It, and Palestinian Territories, Will Become al-Qaida's Next Jihad Battleground

The Mother of all Hoaxes? Part II
(March 22, 2006)
MER called for an unprecedented international media investigation of everything relating to 9/11 last summer. It took us too long to do so -- much too long we plead guilty. Here's the link to the MER Editorial "The Mother of All Hoaxes?" Earlier this year a new organization of academics picked up on that call after a meeting in Washington between of Professor James Fetzer, the organizer of Academics for 9/11 Truth, and MER Publisher Mark Bruzonsky. Now well-known actor Charlie Sheen is lending his voice to the call.

'The Israel Lobby' on the Haaretz Editorial Page
(March 22, 2006)
'The Israel Lobby' study published earlier this week compiled alot of information from diverse sources and provided an important measure of perspective as well. All in all a significant contribution to trying to finally, even so late in the historical day, expose and check the grossly excessive power of what is in effect what we have called it for many years now - 'The Jewish-Israeli Lobby'.

Rachel Corrie - Another New Tragedy
(March 21, 2006)
What a further tragedy that those who care so much about what Rachel Corrie stood for, and what she so sadly died for, lack the understanding and the courage themselves to prevent her political rape on top of all the other indecencies.

U.S. Domination Has Limits
(March 20, 2006)
From Noam Chomky on the implications of the new spirit of independence from the U.S. that is growing fast in both Latin America and Asia.

The Jewish-Israeli Lobby
(March 18, 2006)
This is a vital subject, The Jewish-Israel Lobby, but it is one rarely paid the attention it is due and one hardly ever discussed as openly and thoughtfully, and as honestly and 'candidly', as it should be. These two well-known American academics, one from the U of Chicago the other from Harvard, make a limited stab at doing so in this nevertheless quite important article. But they glose over far too much, almost totally overlook far more, and at the end of the day pull far too many punches in view of the unique sensitivities this subject arouses within American society and American Jewry.

EXPECT ANOTHER 9/11 - provoked or 'black oped'
(March 17, 2006)
"Another 9/11 event will prepare the ground for a nuclear attack on Iran. Some readers say that Bush, or Israel...with American complicity, will provoke a second attack on the US. Others say that Bush or the neoconservatives working with some 'black ops' group will orchestrate the attack."

PREPARATIONS FOR IRAN ESCALATE AS IRAQ IS PULVERIZED FURTHER
(March 16, 2006)
Nothing less than ongoing subjugation and control of the region through a combination of military force, super technology, CIA ops, gigantic money expenditures, hated Arab 'client regimes', and Israel of course is currently underway more than ever -- all disguised from gullible Americans with simplistic and to say the least dishonest 'democracy' and 'freedom' rhetoric.

Christian and Jewish Fundamentalism Fomenting More Muslim Radicalism
(March 14, 2006)
What is now known as 'The Clash of Civilizations' is now underway and the ramifications will grow in significance and are potentially catastrophic. Christian Fundamentalism and a pecular modern-day form of Jewish Zionist Fundamentalism underlie what has already happened and are primarily responsible for bringing it about through policies that have continually affronted, embarrassed, insulted, and enraged many in Arab and Muslims countries

NYTimes Top Reporter Back from Baghdad Predicts U.S. will 'fail' in Iraq
(March 12, 2006)
A day after returning to the U.S., after another long term as bureau chief in Baghdad, John F. Burns of The New York Times said on Bill Maher's live Friday night HBO program that he now feels, for the first time, that the American effort in Iraq will likely "fail."

Princeton University Forum Transcript - Anne-Marie Slaughter, Cornell West, Mark Bruzonsky
(March 11, 2006)
This is the full transcript of the Princeton University Forum: "Intellectuals and the Institution: What's in the Service of the Nation?". This forum was held at Princeton University on February 7, 2006. Panelists were Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs; Cornell West, Professor; Mark Bruzonsky, Journalist. The forum was moderated by Sean Wilentz, Director of the Program in American Studies.

Major CRISIS Now Ahead Predicts Fisk
(March 9, 2006)
Robert Fisk says that in his three decades of reporting from the Middle East he's never seen it more dangerous, and that he's certain another major crisis, possibly even another September 11, is coming.

India-U.S.-Turkey-Israel Alliance as U.S. Bulks Up For Further Middle East War
(March 8, 2006)
"If this nuclear deal [with India] stands, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is going to fall. The president has just blasted a huge hole through the framework that his predecessors worked for over 30, 40 years to help build up."

Dispossessing, Controlling, and Permanently Subjugating the PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
(March 7, 2006)
The Israeli-inspired mention of 'Palestinian Territories' at the Oscar's Sunday night in a sense telecasts the new language far and wide -- no real state, no real homeland, nothing even close to self-determination but rather permanent dispossession and in effect imprisonment on the now scattered, divided, controlled and individually cut-off 'territories'.

JEWISH HOLLYWOOD - Paradise Now and Munich both lost and 'minimized'
(March 6, 2006)
Not only does the powerful American Jewish community enjoy wielding its power on both coasts in the USA these days but it has a closer than ever working alliance with Israel's leading newspaper, Ha'aretz, as well. And that's where this take on what happened last night was nearly instantly published -- clearly with advance understanding and preparations for what happened just a few hours ago in considerably Jewish Hollywood.

IRAN STRIKE PLANS ESCALATING FAST
(March 5, 2006)
"Israel’s special forces are...operating inside Iran in an urgent attempt to locate the country’s secret uranium enrichment sites... They are operating from a base in northern Iraq, guarded by Israeli soldiers with the approval of the Americans."

Chechnya - Horror and Pogrom with U.S. and Israel support
(March 4, 2006)
This is just one story from the terribly bleeding and crying land of Chechnya that has been so forgotten and so sold-out to big-power 'politics' and geo-political 'realities' by so many for so long, including by the the increasingly discredited United Nations as well.

'Jordan Is Palestine' Rebirthing
(March 3, 2006)
The Israelis won't say it in public, but the realities of their actual geopolitical strategy, as well as their 'Revisionist Zionist' ideology, are that when the day comes that they can manage it they will manuever world events, U.S. policies, and through the Americans at least the Europeans and the U.N., so that what was once called 'Transjordan' will become known as the 'Palestinian State'.

New America Sets The New Middle East Negotiations Date On-The-Make
(March 1, 2006)
To put things in perspective, the New America Foundation moved in to town a few years ago after the Bush/Cheney takeover trying to establish a kind of new centrist block in modern-day Rome. On the whole New America types are too smart and internationalist to be Bush/Cheney/Neocons, too patriotic to want to be part of an American super-nova eclipse which they fear is underway, yet too compromised, power hungry, and on-the-make to be trusted by the rest of us.

For persons in Florida and California
(March 1, 2006)
West Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, and Naples FLORIDA - Santa Barbara and Los Angeles CALIFORNIA - If you are in or near any of these cities and would like to meet in person with MER Publisher Mark Bruzonsky soon please email to MER@MiddleEast.Org with your name and phone numbers(including cellphone) and with brief information about yourself. .




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