What the Newton public schools pro-'Palestinian' education has brought
There's a lot of outrage over this report about the public schools in Newton, Mass., the town in which I grew up.
Parents groups are up in arms after a recent report found public
schools in Newton, Massachusetts presented whitewashed versions of Hamas
and Palestinian Authority (PA) charters, as well as other materials
posing the destruction of Israel as acceptable.
The findings were made through an investigation of classroom materials by the independent watchdog group Verity Educate, which discovered "repeated
instances of bias against Israel, bias against the US and its actions
in the Middle East, and bias that sanitizes the ideology and actions of
terrorists."
Parents for Excellence in Newton Schools (PENS), which took part in
the research, on Sunday released a statement demanding action over the
issue and detailing just how serious the school materials were.
In one case, students were given a modified version of the Hamas
charter, in which references to genocide were removed and the word "Jew"
was replaced with "Israeli" to sanitize the terrorist group's murderous
intentions.
If they hold a 'victory rally' does it mean they won?
While threatening to resume the war when a 72-hour cease fire runs out on Friday morning, Hamas held a 'victory rally' in Gaza City on Thursday.
Let's go to the videotape.
Obviously, Hamas is trying to distract their people from the reality of the destruction of Gaza.
One of the main
speakers, Hamas spokesman Mushir Al-Masri, urged the Palestinian
representatives in Egypt - "don't come back without our conditions and
demands. Work to get them with all of your might, in spite of the
occupation."
The demonstration was organized by Hamas as a part of its
psychological warfare and its attempt to create the impression it won
the battle, much like former prime minister Ismail Haniyeh's speech on
Tuesday.
Al-Masri continued hurling threats at Israel, after Hamas
officials said there was no agreement to extend the ceasefire on
Wednesday evening.
"We support the resistance, we support the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Brigades, we support more firing at Tel Aviv and we support the
tunnels," he said.
He was photographed saluting the "resistance" and clarified: "The war is not over yet."
But the reality is much different than Hamas is portraying it. Let's go to the videotape.
More Hamas use of Israeli terror victims as their own
Another disgraceful use by Hamas or its supporters of Jewish terror victims - this time from the March 2002 suicide bombing at Jerusalem's Cafe Moment - to claim that they are actually 'Palestinians' victimized by Israel.
'Call the dead 'innocent civilians,' don't post pictures of rockets fired from civilian areas'
Hamas has instructed its social media activists to call all dead in Gaza 'innocent civilians' and not to post pictures of rockets fired from civilian areas.
In light of the recent round of fighting in Gaza, the Hamas
interior ministry has issued guidelines to Gaza Strip social media users
for reporting events and discussing them with outsiders.
The ministry's guidelines, which it is calling the "Be Aware –
Social Media Activist Awareness Campaign," were issued via an
instructional video posted on its official website and via posters
published on its Twitter and Facebook pages. Both the video and the
posters were also posted on the ministry's social media accounts and
forums.[1]
The guidelines are aimed at ensuring preservation of the line of
Hamas and other Palestinian organizations; preventing the leaking of
information that would be of military value to Israel; bolstering
Hamas's propaganda efforts outside the Gaza Strip, in both the Arab
world and the West; and preventing damage to Hamas's image. Hamas
particularly seeks to cement the perceptions that its actions are a
response to Israeli aggression and that all Gaza casualties are
"innocent civilians," and to ensure that there is no evidence of rockets
being fired from Gaza population centers.
The Hamas interior ministry website included the following text
along with its instructional video: "The Information Department of the
Ministry of the Interior and National Security has instructed activists
on social media websites, particularly Facebook, to correct some of the
commonly usedterms as they cover the aggression taking place in
the Gaza Strip. The following Information Department video calls on all
activists to use the proper terminology, in order to play their part in
strengthening the home front and in properly conveying information
worldwide."[2]
Let's go to the videotape (Hebrew with Arabic subtitles - more to follow in English).
"Seven Israelis die in Zikim," "Ten injured in Haifa after rocket
explodes," "All of Tel-Aviv is in shelters," and "Hamas succeeds in
causing malfunctions to the Iron Dome system," - these are just some of
the headlines that Gaza residents have been hearing in recent days on
Hamas radio and television broadcasts.
But none of the news items mentioned above actually happened. Seven Israelis did not die in Zikim, instead it was five Hamas terrorists that died.
No one was injured in Haifa, and Tel Avivians are still going to work,
enjoying the beach and sitting at cafes, not locked in shelters.
...
The latest "news" that Al-Aqsa TV, and Hamas radio channel The voice of Al-Aqsa are reporting is that the IAF has no more targets left.
After
the incident in Zikim, Hamas television claimed that the majority of
Ashkelon residents have fled to the area of Wadi-Ara in northern Israel.
Another fabrication.
These people are still pretty foolish. If Hamas were winning, would all those buildings be falling around them?
"Palestine
was the Greco-Roman name for a region. In the year 135 AC, the name of
the region became the official name of one of the provinces of the
Roman Empire in an attempt to obliterate the connection between the
Jewish people and Judea - the land they've inhabited for over 1000
years.
However, like Antarctica, the Amazons or the Sahara, naming a place doesn't create a nation of Antarcticans or Saharans.
Oh, and for the record, Jesus was not a Palestinian, he was a Judean Jew."
The 'Palestinian Liberation Organization' (PLO) has released a slick Christmas video in which they once again try to depict Jesus as a 'Palestinian' (as if there was such a thing as a 'Palestinian' in Jesus' time, or as if the 'Palestinians' are the genetic heirs to the Jews who were called 'Palestinians' from shortly after Jesus' time until 1948).
And of course the entire video vilifies Israel, giving no context whatsoever for checkpoints (which didn't exist until after 1994) and the 'security fence' (which didn't exist until after 2003), all of which were necessitated by continuous 'Palestinian' terrorism like yesterday's attempt to blow up a bus in Bat Yam. Such terror attacks have only increased as the 'Palestinians' have bitten off pieces of Israel's land.
Let's go to the very slick propaganda that is this videotape.
Lori Lowenthal Marcus got into a Twitter debate with Alu Abunimah in the wee hours of Sunday morning over Beitar Jerusalem signing two Muslim soccer players from Chechnya.
I am reproducing the tweets below. Given that Abunimah posted an irrelevant comment and walked away, I would say that Lori won the debate.
.@aliabunimah I would if there was.Why don't u renounce ur racist hatred for Jews & the Jewish State?
— Lori LowenthalMarcus (@LoriLMarcus) January 27, 2013
.@aliabunimah u said institutionalized bigotry in Israel. Racist Betar fans & players unacceptable, but Arab countries have institl bigotry
— Lori LowenthalMarcus (@LoriLMarcus) January 27, 2013
.@aliabunimah Glad u agree Arab nations bigoted & I can understand u r disappointed those countries not learn from Israel, instead bigoted.
— Lori LowenthalMarcus (@LoriLMarcus) January 27, 2013
@lorilmarcus I didn't agree. I said its irrelevant. Israel is supposed to be exemplary yet all you can do is compare it to others
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) January 27, 2013
.@aliabunimah Have trble w/ English?My 1st response: Israel doesn't have institutionalized bigotry, was giving u other places 2 focus on
— Lori LowenthalMarcus (@LoriLMarcus) January 27, 2013
@lorilmarcus so any person born in "Israel" can move back there?
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) January 27, 2013
@lorilmarcus Any person can lease lands from the "Jewish National Fund"? Have you ever looked at Sikkuy's Equality Index?
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) January 27, 2013
There are a couple of tweets that did not come through. You can read the entire conversation here.
Oh and by the way, three Beitar fans were arrested at Saturday's game in Jerusalem for 'racist jeers.'
Police arrested three Betar Jerusalem soccer fans for racist jeering
made at Saturday's game at the Teddy stadium in Jerusalem, Army Radio
reported on Sunday.
The background for the racist flare up was
the news that team owner Arkady Gaydamak intends to bring two Muslim
Chechen players to the team. Referring to the practice of the team to
recruit only Jewish players, the fans held signs that read "Betar is a
pure team."
Politicians in Israel who condemned the fans' behavior were quick to
link the event to Sunday's marking of International Holocaust Memorial
Day.
...
Betar Jerusalem and its fans have a reputation for being intolerant.
Team owner Arkady Gaydamak said that there is no conflict between the
Jews and the Muslims in Chechnya and warned against painting all of the
fans with the same racist brush. "The absolute majority of Betar
supporters... are against the anti-Muslim provocation."
Gaydamak
said that the racist outbursts made him more determined to bring the two
Muslim players to Betar. However, one of the two players has already
indicated that he would not come to play for a team whose fans do not
respect its players' beliefs.
I agree that what those 'fans' did was wrong, but as someone who grew up under the US rules of freedom of speech, I have a problem with people being arrested for holding up a sign at a soccer game. This isn't exactly yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater....
This video was made by the 'Palestinian Authority.'
But here are facts overlaid on top of a propaganda video made by the Palestinian
Authority for Christmas 2012. They don't want you to know that
Christians are fleeing Palestinian-ruled areas because of harassment and
discrimination.
The problem with this type of simplistic analysis as part a history curriculum, of course, is that it presents a one-sided, highly-biased view of the facts on the ground in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza, completing ignoring some critical aspects of the conflict, namely, that “resistance” is a euphemism for terrorism, and that when Palestinian women are detained and arrested by Israeli defense forces it is a result of their actions, often successful, to murder Jews as part of the campaign to extirpate Israel.
In fact, the Arab World Notebook, the teaching tool used by Ms. Engel for this class, has already been discredited as a legitimate part of any history curriculum, precisely because its primary purpose is to whitewash the negative aspects of Arab and Muslim history while simultaneously assigning blame for the region’s pathologies on the colonialism, imperialism, the West, and Israel specifically.
A 2005 report on the Arab World Studies Notebook written by the American Jewish Committee, for example, “Propaganda, Proselytizing, and Public Education,” found that while the purported intent of the publication was to create “sympathetic views of the Arabs and Muslim religion in the American classroom,” the end product of the guide was to present “historical distortion as well as uncritical praise, whitewashing, and practically proselytizing.”
More relevant to the recent incident in Newton, the skewed view of the history and present-day politics of the Middle East as outlined in the guide “appears largely designed to advance the anti-Israel and propagandistic views of the Notebook’s sponsors, the Middle East Policy Council . . . and Arab World and Islamic Resources . . . .”
“While the Notebook pays lips service to presenting “different points of view,” the report concluded, “it provides only an Arab perspective . . . on Jerusalem, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the conflict between Western and traditional Muslim values.”
Teaching history with a political or ideological agenda, of course, does not make for true education, precisely because it does not put issues into context, distorts movements and ideologies, and uses events and facts selectively to insure that one interpretation of history, and only one, is taught to impressionable students.
Tony Pagliuso told the Newton TAB his daughter, a Newton South High School student, was given material defaming Israeli defense forces.
Pagliuso said World History teacher Jessica Engel distributed a chapter on women from the Arab World Notebook to students earlier this week.
“It’s pure propaganda and pure defamation that Israeli occupation forces and citizen soldiers are imprisoning, torturing and murdering Arab women,” he said.
The section, of the third of five pages, reads as follows: “Over the past four decades, women have been active in the Palestinian resistance movement. Several hundred have been imprisoned, tortured, and killed by Israeli occupation forces since the latest uprising, “Intifada,” in the Israeli occupied territories.”
Pagliuso said his daughter was troubled by the reading.
“My family - we’re all Israeli and American citizens and have a lot of family in this area. [My daughter] said ‘is this true? Is this what Israeli soldiers do?’ knowing full well we have 25 family members in the Israel Defense Forces,” he said.
Pagliuso said he spoke to Engel, Department Head Jennifer Morrill, Principal Joel Stembridge, central administrators and Mayor Setti Warren.
Superintendant David Fleishman said Stembridge, Morrill and Engel are meeting with Pagliuso on Tuesday.
“Jen Morrill is in her first month of the job. She took a look at it and agreed it’s something that needs to be reviewed… I took a look at it and agree it needs to be reviewed,” Fleishman said.
He said they’ll examine the particular passage to see is it fits with the goal of the class-learning about Islam and women in the Middle East.
He said the previous department head was involved in the curriculum choice, and that administrators will determine if it deviates from the class’ goal.
“We value lots of input and free speech, and we agreed with the parent it's worth reviewing,” he said.
A cop out: Blame the prior administration.
Of course the real question is where are Israel's representatives in the Boston area and why aren't they countering this type of propaganda? Silly me. Why even ask that question?
By the way, there was a four-hour break in the middle of this post. Yours truly is not feeling well (I sent my young sons to tonight's Simchat Beit HaShoeva celebrations with someone else). God willing, this too will pass.
Given how experienced the Russians are at propaganda, I suppose we should not be too surprised at this report from Russian television on the flytilla.
Let's go to the videotape.
I want you to note a few things.
First, people who enter a country illegally don't have a right to a lawyer to help them stay there. Not under Israeli law and not under most other countries' law either.
Second, note that this is not about the 'occupation.' Note that this suicidal Israeli (fortunately, there aren't that many, they're just very vocal) goes straight to 1948 and the 'right of return.'
Third, note how one-sided this report is. Only one side is represented and the questions are a bunch of softball questions.
Bir Zeit on the Hudson's strange idea of academic balance
And you thought that going to college was supposed to be about being exposed to lots of different ideas. Welcome to the 'Palestine studies' department at Bir Zeit on the Hudson:
And to think that 35 years ago, Warner Schilling taught me in that very same building.
Well, the course offerings at Bir Zeit on the Hudson look a little different these days than they did in 1976:
And then there was this one last spring:
Is there anyone on the faculty at Columbia who's embarrassed by this? Or are they all too busy counting how much money they're getting for having a 'Palestinian' propaganda department?
One thing this isn't is academic. Arthur Hertzberg must be rolling over in his grave.
Joseph Puder argues that the only way Israel can win the propaganda war against it is by having its own satellite television channel to get its message across. You know,like al-Jazeera or something like that.
The state of Israel has failed miserably in winning over the English-speaking world, as well as the French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russians, by ignoring the need for an essential media tool — a satellite television channel with an ability to broadcast worldwide news reports and interviews, similar to Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, or the BBC. Even Hezbollah had the foresight to set up a satellite operation, Al-Manar, influencing viewers across Europe and the Middle East. Since Israel is not on the world communications map, it is neither on the geographic map. Israel has foolishly depended on outlets such as CNN and the BBC to bring its side of the story to English speaking households. Its image has been severely damaged as a result, leading to a worldwide willingness to participate in a concerted effort to delegitimize the state through a so-called “BDS” campaign of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions.
...
An armed Palestinian state would be an unequivocal strategic threat to the state of Israel. It would threaten major Israeli population centers, its international airport (Ben Gurion), and its power stations — all of which are within range of artillery fire, not to mention the sophisticated missiles the new state would rush to acquire.
And so, it is tragically uncanny that a technologically sophisticated Israel has neglected to mount a robust public relations campaign through a worldwide satellite TV channel station. Such neglect represents gross negligence on the part of the successive Israeli governments. Israel has the facilities: TV studios, qualified broadcasters, and technical personnel who know how to create and operate a satellite TV. And Israel enjoys the money to bankroll such an operation. What it lacks is the will to take action. Israel’s well-being depends on arming itself with a global communications weapon like Al-Jazeera.
An Israeli, pro-Zionist, Al-Jazeera-like channel would help Israel overcome the biased reporting of European and most American channels, and would reach households in Europe as well as the U.S. with a clear and undiluted message as to the dangers a Palestinian state would pose to Israel, Jordan, and the region.
Utilizing satellite technology would allow Israel’s 7 million people to match the Arab/Muslim world propaganda, even with its vast resources and 350 million people. As Israel is being savaged and delegitimized in the media, on campus, and in international institutions, Israel must fight back — not with government press releases, speeches, conferences, or meetings with world leaders, but by bringing its message to ordinary citizens worldwide.
This is not a new idea. So why hasn't it happened? One reason is that the Israeli government is incapable of doing it. The government would insist on giving equal time to Haaretz-like views that would do more harm than good.
Video: Co-founder of Israel Apartheid Week admits it's nothing but propaganda
The co-founder of Israel Apartheid Week in Canada, one Judy Rebick (yes, it goes without saying that she's Jewish) has admitted that the entire notion of Israel Apartheid Week is nothing but propaganda. The relevant part of the video runs from about 5:50 to about 8:15.
Daniel Greenfield writes an open letter to Harvey Weinstein, the director of the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel movie Miral, which is previewing this week in the United Nations General Assembly.
Come along Harvey, into the bedroom where a father and his three-month-old daughter, Hadas, were fast asleep. It can be hard to get a 3-month-old baby to fall asleep. Her father must had quite a time of it that night. Babies may not have language, but they do have fears. They are afraid of the strange new world they were born into. And they need parents to comfort them and assure them that everything will be all right. That they are loved and protected.
When Rabbi Fogel finally got his little baby daughter to sleep, she must have felt safe with her father there. The man who would have taught her about life. Who would have done his best to protect her. And the man whose throat was slashed in his sleep along with his child's.
Tell me Harvey, do you know what goes through a three month old baby's mind when her throat is being slashed? You can't make a movie about it and you wouldn't it if you could. Movies are complex stories. The characters change and grow. They become someone else. A three-month-old baby having her throat cut will never become anyone else. She is fixed in that moment of horror and pain. Dying without knowing why. Only that her parents couldn't protect her.
If you were going to make a movie about this scene, it would be about the killers. You would show their past and explain their actions. Surely an Israeli soldier stepped on their toe once or blew up their house. Stretch it out over two hours and you can justify anything. Even the knife being drawn across Hadas' throat. That is the magic of cinema. But to three-month-old Hadas, there is no context. The movie of her life ended the night you were hard at work promoting yours.
The mother had been in the bathroom while the bloody work took place. A small moment of peace while her children slept. She didn't let them cut her throat, the way they had that of her husband and her baby daughter. Instead she fought them. They had to stab her to death.
If you ever make a movie about these particular terrorists, be sure to emphasize how hard it is to stab a mother to death. She will fight for her children. And the terrorists will have to work to kill her. You should swoop the camera down sympathetically on their sweating faces as they do the hard work of murdering her.
From there they went on to murder 11 year old Yoav who was reading in bed. Next was 3 -year-old Elad. Why stab a 3-year-old boy twice in the heart? That is the question, Harvey. I understand once. Once is certainly enough to kill any 3 year old. But twice? Maybe it was that each killer wanted a turn and a share of the glory of murdering a toddler. They had already murdered three children and their parents, but the laws of Islam can be arcane sometimes. Is it possible then that the Shaheed (the martyr) will not enter paradise unless he murders a 3 year old too?
Maybe there are more virgins waiting in paradise for each child killed. Murder a child and trade his body in for more virgins. Or maybe it is that the brave Jihadists who climb through living room windows and cut the throats of children in their sleep wanted to feel the violence of that blow. The thrill of the knife slamming home into a child's heart. Or maybe it is that Elad's heart was strong enough that even two adult Muslim terrorists had to stab twice to kill him.
I would like to think so.
Your article promoting Miral urges that 'understanding the "other" requires us to step out of our comfort zones'. Step now out of your comfort zone. And understand the other. I don't mean the murderers themselves. I think you understand them a little too well. If you didn't understand them at all, Miral would be lying on a back shelf somewhere.
I urge you to understand your own 'Other', not those who kill in the name of Islamic terrorism, but those who die of it. Who die and yet refuse to give in. Who cling to their tiny patch of land, more than you would ever cling to your Connecticut estate.
Family members have released photos of the children lying in their blood, but I don't think you will want to see them. They are too far outside your comfort zone. There is plenty of blood and gore in your movies, but this is different. These are the bodies of inconvenient children. Their deaths don't fit into your ideological framework. You know quite well that Muslims are good people, and Jews who live on land claimed by the Muslims, are bad people. If they are murdered it is inconvenient because it retards the peace process. The process by which terrorists climb through living room windows and slash the throats of children. Until whole families are at peace.
...
"Unless the Palestinian narrative is finally understood and acknowledged by Israelis and their American supporters, there will never be peace in the Holy Land," you say. As if peace were in your hands to give. But we understand the Palestinian narrative all too well. The real one and the fake one. We know the olive groves, the bulldozers and the keys. And we also know the terrorist gangs trained by Islamic fanatics and Socialist dictators to seize the land and murder its inhabitants. The gangs whom Moscow gave a nationalist gloss calling them the Palestinian people, the smirking thugs on whom President Clinton and European leaders bestowed legitimacy and billions of dollars.
If you want to know the real narrative, then put Miral on a shelf and ask where the Christians of the region have gone. Where have the Zoroastrians gone? Why are there so few left? The answer would make for a much better movie, but it is not a movie that you will ever make. It is a story of bigotry and genocide. It is an old story and a new one. You can find its oldest chapters in the Koran, along with the graves of the Jews of what is today Saudi Arabia. Its latest chapters are being written in Europe, where Jews once again flee European cities, not from men in uniforms, but in long robes. And unless that narrative is understood, there will be no peace in the Holy Land, or anywhere else.
I know that none of this will move you. Controversy is your bread and butter. The more you hear cries of pain, the more you count the cash. Miral will make you money. Just as Der Ewige Jude made money. And you will protest that there is no comparison between the two. Miral is only giving the Palestinian narrative, just as Der Ewige Jude gave the Aryan narrative. It is more subtle, I'm sure. The audiences you count on are liberal and sophisticated. They won't be taken in by gutter propaganda.
You will dismiss this as, what you describe in your article, being, "smeared by those who insist on reducing this conflict to us vs. them." So stand outside while Rabbi Cohen walks with his gun, a twelve year old by his side, her heart beating almost as hard as her little brother's did when the knife came down on it, and wait while she goes inside. And then answer her this, if you truly believe in not reducing the conflict to 'Us vs Them' then why are you telling the story of Miral and not her story?
You have chosen a side. Our 'Them' is your 'Us'. Soon that girl will leave the house again, along with her younger brothers. Three children who somehow survived. Look her over carefully. She is your 'Other'. The story you do not want to hear. The face you do not want to see. She survived tonight. So did two of her brothers. Next time they might not. No movie is needed to tell her story. Her life is her story. Her survival a testament.
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.
I'd like to show you a trailer of a movie that you may not like. The movie is called Miral. 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....
The movie was released on September 3 at the 2010 Venice Film Festival and in France on September 15, 2010. The film was set for release (I assume it's been released by now) on December 3, 2010 in the United Kingdom, and on March 25, 2011 in the United States. That's nearly a month after Oscar. We don't know what films will be nominated yet because nominations just closed on Friday. We do know that the Golden Globe Awards were Sunday night and it didn't win anything there. But it could still win an Oscar (NOTE - The following was written in March 2010).
Miral: (No US distributor yet)
Another under the radar film. This is a real life story about a Palestinian woman who opens an orphanage in Jerusalem in 1948. It stars Freida Pinto, the darling of Slumdog Millionaire, and is helmed by Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). Expect a lot of early critics’ awards, which should propel this film onto the Best Picture short list.
I don't know what the rules are, but this film could be eligible for awards next year, given that it's not even opening in the US until March.
And here's the trailer. Let's go to the videotape.
And the director? I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear that he's Jewish.
Schnabel revealed that the project had relevance for his own family history; "Coming from my background, as an American Jewish person whose mother was president of Hadassah [the Women's Zionist Organisation of America] in 1948, I figured I was a pretty good person to try to tell the story of the other side."
Isn't it great how good we Jews are at taking the other side?
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....
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
