Israeli filmmaker Udi Aloni has a response in today's Haaretz to Jerry Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen and the other Hollywood stars who have misrepresented and criticized the protest of the Toronto International Film Festival's City to City program with Tel Aviv. Aloni was a co-author of the Toronto Declaration along with John Greyson, Naomi Klein and others.
In addition to challenging the misconceptions of the Toronto protest, Aloni also criticizes fellow Israeli filmmakers Shmulik Maoz (Lebanon) and Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir) who have received international acclaim for their work about the Israeli invastion of Lebanon without providing accountaibility to those killed in the war. As Aloni says, "I came to realize that they are not haunted by the ghosts of their dead victims but rather, haunted only by the unpleasant images of war, and in their art they seek to create some peace for their soul."
Aloni:
Dear Jerry Seinfeld, you have made me laugh countless times and indeed I love you. Please don't make a fool of yourself. Fight for the right of a Palestinian director to shoot a film in his homeland as a free man and do not go after those who take part in a legitimate protest.
We have no guns or warplanes that may kill women and children without distinction. We do have the right to protest. I expect a public apology from you for your part in the system of lies directed at us, the human rights activists in Israel, by the Israeli embassy in Canada, or rather suitable compensation for libel against me and my friends.
Personally speaking, I am against all forms of boycott against arts, regardless of the political view it conveys, but it is my right to protest against the cynical use of artists, us in Israel and you, the Jewish-American artists.
If it is real love of Israel which is in your hearts, please help us end the occupation, advise us on reaching a worldwide audience, correct us if you think we are overdoing it at times, but don't cooperate with the occupation itself.
It has brought about the destruction of the Palestinian people and it will next bring about our own destruction, since there will be no free Israeli-Jew as long as the Palestinian is not free, having the same and equal rights.
You, Shmulik Maoz and Ari Folman, two exceptionally talented artists, you and the rest of the Israeli artists, please join our call "No Celebration Under Occupation." The debate about the part your films play in the Israeli propaganda campaign, can be interpreted by your actions and declarations, not just through your films.
To conclude, a call to all the Jewish artists in North America, Israel and elsewhere:
I think we should be asking ourselves not why Israeli directors create films about Lebanon (it makes sense that people will deal with their own scabs), and not even why Israel's government supports these films and uses them for its own aims.
The real question is why the image of an Israeli soldier, agonizing and crying, is so appealing to festival curators and audiences of the western world? When we find the answer to this question, we will be able to comprehend the unreasonable, international sympathy that the state of Israel is awarded, regardless of its actions, which are perceived by the same West itself as violent.
I’ve always wondered if Jerry Seinfeld is political about Palestine, since one kibbutz that I worked on claimed that Jerry Seinfeld also worked there as a teen. I would guess that his parents are Zionists if he isn’t.
Worth repeating:
“Listening to the empty speeches by Shmulik Maoz and Ari Folman, I came to realize that they are not haunted by the ghosts of their dead victims but rather, haunted only by the unpleasant images of war, and in their art they seek to create some peace for their soul.
“They wish for the images to go away so that they, and not their victims, may finally get a good night’s rest. Once more it is all about us. There is no place for the other, it is us and the west which will always be the subject (shooting and crying) where the Arab will continue to participate as nothing but an object.”
I haven’t seen “Lebanon” yet, but that was precisely my impression of “Waltz with Bashir”. Beyond the incredible narcissism involved, these talented artists – along with Israel’s most celebrated writers – help perpetuate the false image of the good, peace-loving left-wing Israeli. Most well-meaning westerners fall for it, feeding their own narcissistic need to feel fair, balanced and rational in their approach to I/P.
“Hollywood Jews: Toronto film fest protest against Israel a ‘blacklist’“
link to latimesblogs.latimes.com
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Who could have imagined we’d see a headline like this in an American MSM publication, and the L.A. Times, no less. Times the are a’changin’.
But the whole Hollywood “blacklist” claim being made by Jewish Zionists, which invokes McCarthyism, is such a farce. First off, it is the Hollywood Zionist Jews who have all the money and power and are trying to blacklist the weaker pro-Palestinian entertainment industry element, not the other way around.
Secondly, it is the Zionist Jews who are being McCarthyite by suggesting the pro-Palestinians are a proxy for (the U.S. government-deemed “terrorist” group) Hamas, and hence should be hunted by the federal government.
The inclination among Jewish Zionists to turn truth on its head and portray themselves as vulnerable victims even as they are the clear aggressors obviously extends beyond the Levant to New York and Hollywood Zionists, as well.
I am a big fan of Seinfeld but Did you ever watch Jerry Seinfield or Larry Davis take on any other prejudice besides anti-semitism. Definitely heard them bring up this issue up in several episodes. Never any other type of prejudice or other genocides.
Sasha Cohen focused on ‘anti semitism’ in Borat but have never watched him even insinuate there are other prejudices in the world.
Would not have expected any other response from these two guys. Unable to extend concerns about prejudices and bigotry to other issues or peoples
I’ve watched the Seinfeld episodes many times; I also saw all of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and I agree never once anything about Jews generally in any of the dialogue that was not cast in ironclad victimhood. On Seinfeld, various episodes portray Jeey as a friend of Pakistanians or black characters, and on CYE David
portrays himself as an insensitive Jew regarding blacks, but it is the blacks really
who mistake David’s good intentions invariably. That’s it. Both the Seinfeld series and
CYE are PC in the extreme. Of course most of the episodes of both shows reveal
and concentrate on simple human foibles, but nearly all do so within the confines
of MOT-MOT scenarios. This of course is much more blatent with CYE’s dialogue, on HBO cable,
than for the standard network audience supporting Seinfeld. On Seinfeld the
Jewishness is disguised (easily enough for the average Gentile)–although once in awhile it shows through, for example in the
episode where all the main characters agree that being circumcised is more aesthetic, as if Europe too thinks so, and the USA’s circumcision rate has not been going down for decades now. And so on. The new episode of CYE has
brought back the whole Seinfeld crew, including all characters, writers and prop people, etc–the show within the show. Will be interesting to see what develops on that HBO series now.
“Mondoweiss,
Mondoweiss,
Every morning you greet me….
Sorry, sorry, got carried away. I’m a sucker for Hammerstein. Anyway, you can hear the whole thing in my new musical about Zionism, “The Sound of Chutzpah“
Newmann!
Hi Jerry!
What do you want?
Just being neighborly, Jerry–
‘Seinfeld’ was funny in its day, but didn’t age well, and Sacha Baron Cohen is the opposite of funny, but which I mean unfunny. (Well, when he went into character on a NYC street and got his face bashed in, that was funny.) I have not heard much from either when they are ‘out of character’ but from the little that I have heard they don’t seem all that intelligent or informed. And since they already have consumed a supersized portion of the airwaves on account of their celebrity, being engaged in the important business of self-promotion and getting yucks and all, perhaps they should just shut up and let real humans discuss the issues, rather than attempt to stifle debate with their inflated sense of self importance. Outside of Hollywood, who has an interest in their opinion on the topic?
I’m with you on this, marc.
I think the human foibles aspect of Seinfeld ages well. Cohen’s stuff is not even funny
to me–just a transparent and very thinly disguised attack on the goyhim as bigoted and ignorant subhumans; his last movie was even worse than his first one. Of course he laughs all the way to the bank–so to that extent he is on to something, no?
I think attaching a celebrity to an important cause may help that cause in the short term, but the reliance on celebrities for anything other than entertainment is completely undemocratic, and probably works to the detriment of a participatory democracy in the long run. IMHO, anyway, MRW.
should say ‘by which I mean unfunny’. shouldn’t comment while at work.
Seinfeld was a show about nothing, but Toronto is a protest about something. Hopefully, this gets through to him.
I detect that many have tremendous respect for Seinfield as an artist and find it difficult to believe he is just another vile zionist. It is hard to accept that a hero in real life does not live up to our imaginations. Maybe we should just accept this story as a piece of evidence of his real life.
When a celebrity endorses your cause you can count on more media coverage but you can also watch the credibility of what you are fighting for suffer.
Smug self-important Hollywood types are the absolute last people we should consult or listen to regarding any serious policy issue (with the exception of the effectiveness or non-effectiveness of entertainment unions)
I think the Seineld show was pretty equal-opportunity in terms of ignoring almost all kinds of prejudice and its issues and it hardly favored anti-semitism in that regard. Without comment or working this or that prejudice into his plots he had blacks and gays and Puerto Ricans as characters and you name it. And in fact in terms of anti-semitism remember that one episode where he ridiculed his uncle for blaming anti-semitism on anybody and everybody, and look how he would exaggerate some of the stereotypes about jews such as with his mother and father and some of their neighors in La Boca Vista and etc. Admirably, I think he kept his politics out of his work except as they aided his comedy.
Baron Cohen is another matter entirely. To me at least his anti-Christian and anti-Slavic hatred is just simply painted all over him, and if anyone tried pulling what he did on the Israelis portraying them all as ready to commit mass murder for a laugh or etc. they’d never be heard from again as an “entertainer” except maybe for some run-down comedy club in Nome.
One other entertainment thing that struck me and that I don’t think I’ve even seen mentioned anywhere however involved that book and movie(s?) “The DaVinci Code.”
Can anyone imagine spinning a tale, taking off say from The Protocols of the Elders Of Zion,” positing a super-powerful cabal of jews, nesting within a not-very-protesting larger jewish society, doing what the Opus Dei folks in the book and movie were doing? With covert agents scattered here and there in powerful organizations, secretly working only to advance the agenda of the Elders?
Apparently even the most insidious, venomous anti-Catholic stories are just fair game and great fun, and the same with anti-Christian and anti-Slavic comedy such as Borat’s too, and no no no of course because “everyone knows” its fiction or comedy it’s okay. Give it a try with the Protocols though sometime; see what happens. Anyone remember what happened even when this or that ridiculous, shifty alien in one of those Star Wars movies was merely said to have a slight yiddish accent?
Good points, Sin Nombre.
I think that certain motifs are perennially popular in drama, for example: powerful, quasi-religious cabals, characters who seem normal but are tied to a sinister underground culture, and characters whose averice is only governed by inscruitable rules and codes.
I also find that humans universally need some safe “bad other” to define themselves against.
What changes is what groups play these parts. Jews were simply irresistable for many of these roles, although Freemasons were extremely popular as well. Jews are now off limits, and Masons seem too harmless, so the Catholic Church seems to be taking up the slack (both in Da Vinci and the Philip Pullman books). The government was particularly popular in the 1990′s (i.e. the X Files).
Grinning white southerners (and sometimes small-town midwesterners with dark secrets) are a horror staple, and middle-American whites (esp. from the South) tend to play the role of bogeyman for most liberals. The MSM’s suggestions that the tax and health-care protests were being masterminded by some fascist network of racists is an example of this same conspiratorial motif.
The most important thing for these motifs to work dramatically is that the “sinister/evil other” needs to be something that the whole audience can see as hostile and alien. What it is seems less important.
I also find that humans universally need some safe “bad other” to define themselves against. Yeah, until we mature as a civilization and the idea of a constant diet of the melodramatic cast of mind in which one side is wholly good and the other side is wholly evil isn;t going to define our perceptual beingness anymore.
The opposite is the tragic cast of mind, or form, in drama wherein the main characters understand their part in their demise, understand they helped create what they’re going through, and struggle with what they’ve wrought. They struggle with self-realization, and redemption. But you can’t have this kind of drama in a culture until the civilization matures.
We know how common it is for a Jewish actor to play a non-Jewish character in Hollywood, and it’s likewise extraordinarily rare for a non-Jewish actor to play a Jewish character. Barney Martin, who played Jerry’s father on the show, was Irish Catholic, and played the role well: Jewish Seinfeld fans often told him how much his character reminded them of their father (according to his Wiki entry).
We’ll know things are getting better when Hollywood begins to portray Arabs as human beings.
“So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Moslems and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Very little of the detail, the human density, the passion of Arab-Moslem life has entered the awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the Arab world. What we have instead is a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that worldvulnerable to military aggression.” -Edward Said, “Islam Through Western Eyes,” The Nation, April 26, 1980
Edward Said wrote that in 1980, and things have only gotten progressively worse since then. Peace be with the Arab world. I hate what Hollywood and our media have done to you.
“We’ll know things are getting better when Hollywood begins to portray Arabs as human being”
I will no longer watch, or go to see, anti-Arab films made in Hollywood or anti-Serb movies. I turn them off, or I walk out of the theatre, no matter who I am with.
I must not get out enough! Where have you seen anti-Serb movies? I saw a movie a few weeks ago where the word redneck was used six or seven times within the first 20 minutes. In that same time, one man whistled Dixie every time he saw a black person, and there was an attempted lynching by a man driving a tow truck. This was supposed to be a horror/comedy of some sort. I had never heard of the movie when I bought the ticket, and I left after a few minutes.
You’re not staying in enough. :-) These are on CineMax, Starz, Whatever, all the time. Usually with US Seals and a US official’s relative involved. They’re all pro-Bosnia. THey did a nice job of coming out with a raft of these things before the decision to bomb Kosovo, which I objected to. Dont get me started.
There’s a big difference with me between what I perceive as propaganda schlock and something that is beautifully crafted. But when I hear throw-away lines designed only to demonize groups of people instead of it being a part of the character, and therefore emotionally essential to the story, I get bored toute suite.
Jerusalem/Barcelona sept,20th. – The `University Center of Ariel in Samaria` (AUCS) has been excluded from a prestigious university competition about sustainable architecture in Spain. With this move, Spain joins the growing number of European governments taking effective, even though preliminary, steps to uphold international law by boycotting or divesting from institutions and corporations involved in or profiting from Israel`s illegal Wall and colonial settlementsbuilt on occupied Palestinian land.
`Ariel University Centre of Samaria` was one out of 21 teams selected last April to compete for the Solar Decathlon-Madrid 2010, the most prestigious competition for sustainable architecture in the world, organized by the Spanish Ministry of Housing together with the Universidad Politיcnica de Madrid .[1]
Selected teams, formed by architects and engineering students are asked to design and build a real house entirely driven by solar energy. Every house should be built in one of the 20 sites in the `Solar Villa` planned in Madrid to host them. To facilitate participation of the various teams, the Spanish Ministry of Housing allocated a sum of 100,000 Euros to every project.
Last Wednesday, September 16th, Sergio Vega, General Director of Solar Decathlon Europe addressed all participant teams to inform them of the exclusion of AUCS: `The decision has been taken by the Government of Spain based upon the fact that the University is located in the [occupied] West Bank. The Government of Spain is obliged to respect the international agreements under the framework of the European Union and the United Nations regarding this geographical area.` It represents the first case of sanctions against an Israeli academic institution in Spain and one of the very first such actions in the West.
The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) in Palestine has taken up the campaign against official Spanish support of the illegal Israeli university in occupied Palestinian territory following an initiative of the UK based professional association, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine (APJP). The support of many individuals and organizations in Spain for the cancellation of AUCS’s participation in the Solar Decathlon had culminated in a parliamentary question in the Spanish Parliament [2] and the eventual exclusion of the illegal settlement academic institution from the competition.
This move of the government of Spain follows the decisionof the UK government not to rent offices from Israeli settlement builder Lev Leviev and the divestment of the Norwegian Pension Fund from Elbit Systems, an Israeli company providing surveillance equipment to the Wall.
link to kibush.co.il
I originally read that link as ‘kibash’.
Unfortunately, Udi Aloni doesn’t make very good films.