Mamet: 'Britain has famous dramatists and novelists whose works are full of anti-Semitic filth'
Although it dates back at least to 2008, American playwright David Mamet's transformation from liberal to conservative has recently been getting a lot of play in the media.In an interview with the Financial Times, Mamet pulls no punches regarding what he thinks of the Brits and their attitude toward Jews and Israel.
We return to politics and I suggest that his intellectual journey from liberalism to neo-conservatism has been travelled before by Jews such as Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz. This triggers a long reflection on his own Zionism and how he thinks Israel has been betrayed by the American left.He's dead-on, isn't he?
“The speeches that Charles Lindbergh made and Oswald Mosley made in the 1930s are the same speeches that are being made today, only slightly more politely: ‘The Jews are bringing us to war. Perhaps we should give their state away.’ The liberals in my neighbourhood wouldn’t give away Brentwood to the Palestinians but they want to give away Tel Aviv.”
But attitudes in Europe to the Middle East tend to be more sceptical about Israel than American ones, I interject. Does he believe that anyone who disputes Israel’s land claims and believes in reallocation of territory to the Palestinians is anti-Semitic?
Uncharacteristically, Mamet hesitates slightly as he starts to answer and I wonder if he will back down, or at least hedge his answer. “Well, at some level ... listen ...” He throws his head back and looks briefly at the ceiling before emitting a grunt of relief as he abandons caution.
“Yes!” he exclaims. “Of course! I mean you Brits ... ” He smiles ruefully. “I love the British. Whatever education I have comes from reading your writers and yet, time and time again, for example reading Trollope, there is the stock Jew. Even in George Eliot, God bless her. And the authors of today ... I’m not going to mention names because of your horrendous libel laws but there are famous dramatists and novelists over there whose works are full of anti-Semitic filth.
“There is a profound and ineradicable taint of anti-Semitism in the British ... The paradigmatic Brit as far as the Middle East goes is [TE] Lawrence. That’s just the fact. Even before the oil was there, you loved the desert. It had all these wacky characters ... But there is a Jewish state there ratified by the United Nations and you want to give it away to some people whose claim is rather dubious.”
Labels: British anti-Semitism, David Mamet
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:30 AM
10 Comments:
Even before the oil was there, you loved the desert. It had all these wacky characters ... But there is a Jewish state there ratified by the United Nations and you want to give it away to some people whose claim is rather dubious.”
Someone tell this "wacky" Mamet, that Israel is a DESERT too.
Mamet doesn't know what he is talking about. It is astonishing that an American claims to know the British better than they know themselves. Unbelievable.
Chayma, I gently disagree. He's using the metaphor of the desert for the romantic attachment of the Brits to Arab culture, embodied in Lawrence of Arabia. And contrasting this with British antipathy first toward Jews, now toward Israel (which one might argue has, more than any other state in the region, transformed the desert). I think he's dead on.
I have nearly finished reading TE Lawrence's the Seven Pillars of Wisdom. He never says anything anti-semitic or anti-Jew in the book. On the contrary he says: "Only in Tripoli of Africa, and in the everlasting miracle of Jewry, had distant semites kept some of their identity and force."(page 31, Chapter 2)
Also, he is not that keen on Arabs:
"Pray God that men reading the(this)story will not, for love of the glamour of strangeness, go out and prostitute themselves and their talents in serving another race."
He was always intensely grateful for English company.
Elsewhere he says he has forebodings about handing guns to such savages as the Arabs and how he fears for the future.
Apocryphal story: FDR told the King of Saudi Arabia that the Arab hostility to Zionism made no sense. "After all," FDR reminded the king, "the Zionists made the desert bloom."
"We Arabs descend from bedouin warriors," replied Ibn Saud. "We like the desert as it is."
@ Professor Miao
Chayma, I gently disagree. He's using the metaphor of the desert for the romantic attachment of the Brits to Arab culture, embodied in Lawrence of Arabia.
The Brits are also romantically attached to African and Indian culture too, not just Arab culture. Just like the Dutch are attached to Indonesian culture, and Spain to it’s South American…etc. etc.
And contrasting this with British antipathy first toward Jews, now toward Israel (which one might argue has, more than any other state in the region, transformed the desert). I think he's dead on.
I don’t think so. He is mixing up two different things
The antipathy towards Jews in Britain only existed for as long it was CHRISTIAN. Not just in Britian but all over Europe. This could be said to have been the case even up to about 30 years ago. But not today. Today, Europe is secular, even those who call themselves Christian are in reality atheists or non practicing secular Christians in name only.
Religion (Christianity) no longer plays any major part in life like it did in the past, thus people don’t care about religious stereotypes that were once widespread.
The antipathy towards Jews in Britian and Europe today is due to Israel and the continuing occupation. Each time a war flares up, anti Israel sentiment leads to attacks on Jews and villification of Israel.
That said, Memet and others like him are wrong, when they start expecting Europeans to become Kahanists and pretend that the Palestinians do not exist. That is the height of stupidity on his part. He said
But there is a Jewish state there ratified by the United Nations and you want to give it away to some people whose claim is rather dubious.
Unbelievable. Saying this to the British of all people and expecting sympathy is living in cloud cuckoo land!
The average Brit has no idea just what Israel means or stands for, they do however come across Islam and its adherents on a regular basis and the resulting friction grows every day.
chayma, bored with israellycool, finds another pro israel blog to spam with his/her crap
way to excuse jew hate in the name is israel hate
totally absurd
just as it is absurd that british antisemitism would disappear as the country became more secular
chayma, bored with israellycool, finds another pro israel blog to spam with his/her crap
Do I know you?
Just say the word, and i'll go..
Well, he's made the exact same jump that prominent Jewish leftists often make to Neoconservatism, and he's taken up the defense of the realm in literary circles where Kristol, Horowitz, et al. do in the foreign policy. They protect Jews and Israel. By the way, only but the properly indoctrinated can believe Jews and Brits aren't in geopolitical lockstep, and, yeah, I can imagine that sad reality begets some antisemitism among popular figures. Virtually every European society has some, although Mamet should make a trip to parts of the continent ravaged by Communists to meet some true antisemites. Besides all that, it's not as if the Brits' film and TV is any less stuffed full of Holocaustism than ours.
Well, he's made the exact same jump that prominent Jewish leftists often make to Neoconservatism, and he's taken up the defense of the realm in literary circles where Kristol, Horowitz, et al. do in the foreign policy. They protect Jews and Israel. By the way, only but the properly indoctrinated can believe Jews and Brits aren't in geopolitical lockstep, and, yeah, I can imagine that sad reality begets some antisemitism among popular figures. Virtually every European society has some, although Mamet should make a trip to parts of the continent ravaged by Communists to meet some true antisemites. Besides all that, it's not as if the Brits' film and TV is any less stuffed full of Holocaustism than ours.
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