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How does Hollywood help whitewash Israel’s ‘image problem’?

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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?
Title:
How does Hollywood help whitewash Israel’s ‘image problem’?
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Duration:
07:17

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