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Only a handful of American
movie stars speak up for Palestine,
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and those few are made to pay
the price for their public sport.
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Why is it so important for the
movie industry to silence those voices?
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Israeli historian Giora Goodman says.
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So I was surprised again and again to find just
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how much effort and care
and thought
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had been put in by
Israeli government officials
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by Israeli IDF officers into bringing
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over to Israel's cause what is
the global entertainment capital.
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So Hollywood matters
to Israel because it is influential.
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But why does Israel matter to Hollywood?
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It is difficult to ask that question,
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let alone answer it without
attracting charges of anti-Semitism.
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Mr. Cartman, you're on dangerous
freaking ground here, buddy.
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I'm sorry, why is it so offensive
to say who runs Hollywood?
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People like Hollywood.
Hollywood's cute.
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The Jews should be
honored to be in charge of it.
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It is true that widespread
anti-Semitism conspiracy theories about
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Jews running Hollywood exist
and fuel a dangerous mentality.
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But making the whole topic
taboo to talk about is not the answer.
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Israeli historian Giora Goodman
and British historian Tony Shaw
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co-authored a book
called Israel and Hollywood.
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The authors told
the University of Southern California that
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Hollywood bosses such
as Barney Balaban in the 1950s,
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Arthur Crim in the 1960s
and Haim Saban in the 21st century
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have also sought to use their
political influence in the White House
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and with U.S. decision makers to promote
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the goals of Israeli
diplomacy in war and peace.
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It is undeniable that Hollywood
has a very real influence on
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U.S.-Israel relations,
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and that influence is linked to Hollywood's Jewish roots.
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For a people so small in number,
our impact is staggering.
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Dozens of Emmy and Golden Globe winners
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and almost 40% of Oscar-winning directors
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are members of the tribe.
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That is Israel's very own
Genesis Price Foundation.
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It is a widely known fact that.
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modern America first saw
light on a Hollywood screen.
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It was largely the product of 6 movie
studios established in the 1920s.
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And run for over 30 years
by a group of Jewish immigrants.
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They had strikingly similar backgrounds.
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These five or six Jewish
immigrants ended up
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building all the first major studios
that created Hollywood from scratch.
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All of these men who founded Hollywood
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were born within a 500
mile radius of one another,
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and all of them wound up roughly within
15 miles of one another In Los Angeles,
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the influence Hollywood
and its movie stars
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had in the US would soon be utilized
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to garner support from American Jews
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and Gentiles alike
for the Zionist project.
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This kind of movie going was religious
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because it had to do with worship.
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It had to do with the screen
being larger than you were
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and you being in awe
of what you were looking at.
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The Jewish production studio heads
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organized fundraisers
with their movie stars
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and wealthy influential connections
and collected 10s of millions of dollars
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for a massive emigration of Jews
to Palestine under the British Mandate.
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One of these men, Barney Belaban,
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head of Paramount Pictures
from the 1930s to the 60s,
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would even help found the most
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influential Israeli lobby group in America,
APEC.
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But money and political connections
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were only secondary to their main efforts
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which was to tell a
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romanticized story
about the creation of Israel.
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The first feature length Zionist film
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made by Hollywood was secretly
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funded in large part by the controversial
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Jewish National Fund. JNF, established
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in 1901, is the financial arm of the
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Zionist organization. The film did not do
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well, but the partnership between Israel
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and Hollywood was not going to fizzle out
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that easily. They made film after film
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until they hit the jackpot with the 1960
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movie Exodus. Exodus was based on a
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racist novel by the same name that the
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Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir at
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the time said was more influential than
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60 years of Zionists and Israeli
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propaganda. As a film, Exodus went even
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further than the book in totally erasing
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the Nakba, the massive ethnic cleansing
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and displacement of 750,000
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Palestinians in 1948. The Jewish
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hero of the story, Ben Canaan, begs the
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Arabs to stay in their homes and become
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an equal part of the state, but they
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refuse and leave. After the 1960s,
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Hollywood moved on from completely
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ignoring the Palestinians. To portraying
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Arabs and Muslims as irrational, evil
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terrorists who often had no real
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motivation beyond they hate our freedoms.
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Arab enemies were dehumanized while
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telling the story of Jewish victims of
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the Holocaust helped melt American
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hearts. A 1978 TV
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miniseries called Holocaust featuring
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Meryl Streep was watched by nearly 100
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million Americans. It told the story of
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the Holocaust in four episodes over 9 1/2
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hours and ended with Jewish orphans being
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smuggled into Palestine illegally. It was
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not until Israel's invasion of Lebanon in
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1982, when Israel killed thousands of
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civilians, that tides started turning and
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public opinion that Israel was the
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underdog started to change in the US in
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the 1980s with the first Lebanon war and
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then the first Zindifadan. The the
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moral doubts about Israel's use of
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force and the direction of its
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government, and that is the younger, the
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younger liberals, they are more
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ambivalent about Israel, while the
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old generation,
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such as Kirk Douglas, would support
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Israel. According to a 2004 report by the
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American Jewish Committee, a younger
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Netanyahu met with Hollywood executives
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in 2001. And challenge them to do
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something about Israel's image problem.
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Netanyahu has long enjoyed close
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relations with his buddies in Hollywood.
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One of the most shocking Hollywood
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stories is that of his pal, producer
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Arnon Milken. Milken is behind massively
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successful commercial films like Pretty
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Woman, Fight Club, 12 Years a Slave,
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Little Woman, and many more. During his
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time as an Israeli spy and arms dealer,
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one of Milken's jobs was to acquire
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uranium from South Africa for Israel's
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nuclear program, and in exchange, he ran
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this massive pro apartheid campaign in
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Hollywood on behalf of South Africa. In
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the end, one of the most important things
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Hollywood did to rally American support
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for Israel was to tell the story of the
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Holocaust and connect it to the
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establishment of Israel. while completely
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disregarding and erasing the suffering
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and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
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Countless films, TV shows, and fictional
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characters work to make often
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white-looking Israeli heroes relatable to
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white people in the US, and to paint
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Muslims and Arabs as the violent and
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savage enemy of the unified, peace-loving
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Judeo-Christian people. What do you think?
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Do Hollywood films and celebrities still
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hold influence over what people think of
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Israel and Palestine?