American Cinema Foundation, Anti-Semitism
The American Cinema Foundation takes a new look at anti-Semitism in Muslim films
By Lee Kaplan
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
On Sunday, August 5th Hollywood stars Gary Sinise, Robert Davi, Morgan Fairchild, Tom Arnold, Ed Ames, Pat Boone and many other Hollywood notables who work in the film and television industry as actors, writers, producers and industry crafts people met for an informative lunch conference given by the American Cinema Foundation to learn more on the issue of anti-Semitism in the world and how America and Jews are being portrayed in the Islamic world's film and television media.
Actor Gary Sinise began the evening by announcing this was the third meeting of the ACF regarding issues related to homeland security, terrorism and anti-Semitism, the group having earlier twice-hosted terrorism expert Steve Emerson of the Investigative Project. That event drew such a large crowd of the membership that two luncheons had to be scheduled for the same day to accommodate everyone.
These were not show business celebrities like Barbra Streisand who called Saddam Hussein the leader of Iran or Roseanne Barr who cheered on the PLO without really knowing what they were talking about, but genuinely concerned Americans who want to learn more about what is going on that affects their country and fellow Americans.
Writer-director-producer and co-host for that day, Lionel Chetwynd summed things up best by explaining that "Those who work in the popular culture have a particular obligation to recognize the importance of what they say and do. In the past, regarding the nightly news, what was important was taken and made interesting, whereas now what has happened that is interesting is taken and made important." It is, he explained, in such a culture that Lindsay Lohan becomes the center of attention in the evening news and things of real importance become "inconvenient."
Chetwynd reminisced how his mentor when he first came to Hollywood told him to "beware of the Defenders of the safely contentious." There's a lot of that in Hollywood, he explained, and told the receptive audience of show business personalities that his mentor taught him it was better to be a "fearless defender of the unsafely contentious," especially since "much of the popular culture happens from within 50 miles of where we sit " referring to the film industry. That said, Chetwynd introduced the two guests.
Greg Rickman was introduced as one of the government officials responsible for cracking the wall hiding the secretly held funds of Holocaust victims by the Swiss banks. Now a Special Envoy for the US State Department for monitoring anti-Semitism worldwide, Rickman rhetorically asked his audience, "Why should Americans care about anti-Semitism, particularly anti-Semitism abroad? "
"The Jews are the canary in the coal mine," he explained, because "What starts with Jews doesn't always end with them." Rickman recounted an increase in anti-Semitism worldwide since 9/11 and how many synagogues had been attacked overseas as rumors promulgated that 9/11 was a Jewish plot, or that the Jews were responsible for AIDS and even, incredibly, that the Katrina Hurricane disaster was caused by the Jews. He gave examples of morbid murders of young Jews in France, Russia and even the United States, and how anti-Israel attitudes worldwide always translate themselves into attacks on Jews.
He mentioned that the State Department had saved a Jewish community in Yemen from fanatics and it was his job to monitor such threats worldwide. He told his audience of the Holocaust denial by Iran's leader and how sales of anti-Semitic tracts like The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf were selling briskly overseas. Many in the audience were surprised by what they heard.
Speaking about the Protocols of Zion was appropriate as the second guest, Yigael Carmon, from the Middle East Research Instititue (MEMRI), was introduced. MEMRI translates film and television broadcasts from the Muslim world into English. Carmon, a former Israeli intelligence colonel and advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers Shamir and Rabin, participated in the Madrid Peace Conference that led to the Oslo Accords and is fluent in Arabic. Carmon screened films with translations by MEMRI of how Hollywood is currently portrayed in television and on film in Middle East media as being in the control of Jews strictly for propaganda purposes and to spew Jew-hatred.
The audience watched shows from the Arab world and Iran that claimed to explain how Hollywood and its films are manipulated solely to serve Jewish and "Zionist" interests as part of a world Jewish conspiracy. A scene from the Egyptian-produced, Saudi-funded film "A Horseman Without A Horse," which is a miniseries based on the Protocols of Zion, left the audience speechless as they watched a young gentile boy having his throat slit and his blood drained to make Jewish matzoh. In yet another scene presented as taking place in a synagogue, a man is systematically butchered as part of a fictitious Jewish ritual. The scenes were all blood libel and portrayed Jews as scheming blood murderers. Most of the films and interview talk shows all denied the existence of the Holocaust and claimed it was only Jewish propaganda. Many in the audience commented they were unaware of such films.
The audience got some relief and laughter as the films continued. One video spoke of the old Tom and Jerry cartoons as being part of a Zionist plot produced by the ardent Hollywood "Zionist" Walt Disney (Tom and Jerry was produced by MGM and Hanna- Barbera, not Walt Disney, who was in fact an anti-Semite). Another video from Iran spoke about an imaginary Supreme Committee for Films in Hollywood (x-msg://19that exists for the sole purpose of propagating the world Jewish conspiracy from the West. According to the film, movie director Steven Spielberg was tasked personally with heading up this "conspiracy" by the Jews of Hollywood against Muslims.
But not all the films shown that afternoon were the same. MEMRI also screened something else never seen in the West: the few dissidents in the Muslim world who, at their own personal risk, dared to speak out against the propaganda against the West and Jews. The closing theme of the MEMRI presentation was that the entertainment community needs to find a way to let the rest of the world hear these people just as much as reveal the calumnies that are spread by the majority in the Islamic world.
At the conclusion of the screenings, Yigael Carmon explained how the words "Jew" and "America" are now in the same boat since Bin Laden's declaration against the Jews and the Crusaders. "The Islamic world is not only at war with the Jews but Americans as well," he explained, and he cautioned that for the leaders in the Hollywood entertainment industry it imperative they get the truth out to everyone affected by their own works and comments.
Lionel Chetwynd concluded the evening talking about a young girl in Egypt who when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up said an actress, or maybe a doctor, or maybe a suicide bomber! He urged his fellow ACF members to work on developing a website and using the organization's resources to turn youths in the Middle East away from such an idea as being a suicide bomber with the same casualness as wanting to be a movie star. He suggested his fellow filmmakers adopt that which is "unsafely contentious."
Judging by the attendees' reactions to the afternoon's presentations, the members of the American Cinema Foundation will be up to that and other tasks in the future that will educate all of us and improve our popular culture through film and television both here at home and abroad.
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