Israel Matzav

UN General Assembly to screen anti-Israel film

The United Nations General Assembly will be screening a virulently anti-Israel film called Miral on Monday.

Sources said that invitations were sent out on Thursday afternoon for the Monday night screening. Members of the Israeli delegation to the UN said the decision to screen a feature film in the General Assembly hall – especially such a dramatically pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli film – was a “horrible” one. The decision seems to have been made unilaterally by Switzerland’s Joseph Deiss, the General Assembly’s president. Messages to his spokesperson left by the Post Sunday were not returned.

On Friday morning, Israel’s delegation to the UN sent a letter of complaint to Deiss, protesting his decision to host the US premiere of Miral, Israeli spokeswoman Karean Peretz told the Post.

In the letter, Israel’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Haim Waxman wrote, “We find it very troubling that the UN has chosen to feature this film in the GA Hall. We are not aware of any other films with such contentious political content that have received this kind of endorsement from the President of the GA.”

The event, according to the Israeli delegation, “will mark a rare occasion in which the UN’s GA Hall is used for a movie premiere. This is clearly a politicized decision of the UN, one that shows poor judgment and a lack of evenhandedness.”

According to members of the Israeli delegation, various offices at the UN denied having any knowledge of the event beforehand, including the office of the Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. His office did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.

Waxman told the Post that Deiss, as president of the General Assembly, in some circumstances is independent and therefore has the prerogative to make decisions such as these.

“But the hall of the General Assembly is not his own property,” Waxman continued. “This is the main hall of the global community and belongs to the countries of the world. Anything that happens there has to be decided with great care. We find ourselves arguing about commas here and there on every document – so how can this screening happen?”

I've reported previously on the film and shown you the trailer here.

Here is the plot from Wikipedia (it's actually based on a true story, which has been propagandized).

A chronicle of Hind Husseini's effort to establish an orphanage in Jerusalem after the 1948 partition of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel.

Jerusalem, 1948. On her way to work, Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbass) comes across 55 orphaned children in the street. She takes them home to give them food and shelter. Within six months, 55 had grown to almost 2,000, and the Dar Al-Tifel Institute was born.

In 1978, at the age of 7, Miral (Freida Pinto) was sent to the Institute by her father following her mother's death. Brought up safely inside the Institute's walls, she is naïve to the troubles that surround her. Then, in 1988, at the age of 17, she is assigned to teach at a refugee camp where she is awakened to the reality of her people’s struggle. When she falls for Hani, a political activist, she finds herself torn between the fight for the future of her people and Mama Hind's belief that education is the road to peace.

You can probably guess to whom this movie is sympathetic....

...

So what's wrong with a highly visible film that's likely to get a lot of attention (even though it may be out of the running for an Oscar) and that shows the 'Palestinians' in a favorable light? Well, let's start with Hind Husseini. Does the name sound familiar? I thought it might. She was the sister of Haj al-Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem and a collaborator with Hitler. And she never apologized for that. And no, the movie isn't going to highlight it either.

And guess where the original 55 children in the orphanage came from? They were survivors of what Wikipedia calls the 'Deir Yassin massacre.' (There never was a 'massacre' there, but I won't get into that now). So you can bet that lie will be repeated.

The orphanage ended up in Sheikh Jarrah, directly across from what was until 2002 the 'Palestinian' headquarters in Jerusalem known as Orient House. Maybe we'll even see the nearby Shepherd's Hotel....

Do you all have a sense of where this is heading? This entire movie is one massive slander against Israel....

But as a reminder, I am going to show you the trailer again.

Let's go to the videotape.



What could go wrong?

Labels: Deir Yassin, Hind Husseini, Joseph Deiss, Miral, Orient House, Palestinian propaganda, UN General Assembly

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:19 AM