Listen to Julian Speaking About His Fellow Jews

Tuvia Tenenbom
Hudson New York
01 April '11

http://www.hudson-ny.org/1996/julian-speaking-about-fellow-jews

Movie producer and distributor Harvey Weinstein and film director Julian Schnabel, two Jews, got a cinema all for themselves, no charge, to show their new creation. And what a place it is: The United Nations, to show a movie named "Miral."

Good people, these UN folks. If you ever thought the UN doesn't love the Jews, now you know you're wrong. How many people get the UN for free? That's love.

"The people who do not want you to see the movie," Harvey says to the Hollywood Reporter, "are crazy."

Sensitive man that I am, I don't like to be called "crazy." So I immediately run to see "Miral" the day it opens in New York. It's not free any more, but the theater is a welcoming place. As you enter, a beautiful young lady stands to welcome you with open arms, and gladly gives you a well-printed leaflet. No charge for that, of course.

Really heartfelt and wonderful, the leaflet reads, in part:

"U.S. Boat to Gaza: The Audacity of Hope. To Gaza With Love.

The U.S. Boat to Gaza Campaign is collecting thousands of letters to the people of Gaza from people like you in the U.S. in an act of friendship and solidarity."

I feel encircled by people of excellent souls and sensitive hearts.

On a day when American pilots drop bombs on anything that moves in Libya, killing scores that nobody even cares to count, you cannot help being impressed with this show of love to fellow human beings thousands of miles away.

Bravo.

The movie starts.

First thing that comes up is: "The Weinstein Company."

Yes, this is a Jewish movie. Relax. Rejoice.

Enter a Christmas tree. Good. Maybe there will be lots of presents?

The dialogue starts.

"My name is Miral," a voice comes from the screen, "born in 1973."

Cut to: "Jerusalem, 1948."

A baby is heard crying, followed by a bunch of more babies, and a sound comes up: "Entire villages are reduced to rubble."

How did this all happen? Nobody knows. Such a beautiful Christmas tree. But it's all gone. Death. Destruction. Bombs.



Who is bombing? The Jews. Why? No idea. The movie does not tell. Must be that the Jews got bored. Jews do that when they get bored. Must be they love the sound, BOOM!, nice and loud. Must be they love the color red, too: the sight of spilled blood.

Camera cut to: 1967.

What happened in between? No idea. But who cares? We see a man raping a woman. Who is the man? A man. But the woman knows and she runs away to become a belly dancer.

Cut to: Belly button. Up and down, right and left, close and closer look at it. What a belly button!

"Hey, beautiful," a criminal-sounding man says to the belly-dancer lady in Hebrew. "Arab whore!" shouts another man to her, also in Hebrew. Those Jews, let me tell you, no kindness in them: the worst of the worst.

Hurt, the belly-dancer lady punches a man and immediately gets arrested by a bunch of other Jews. The belly-dancer lady is taken to jail, where she meets Fatima.

Beautiful Fatima was caught by Israeli forces placing a bomb in an Israeli cinema, which happened to be showing a blond lady having sex. Must be Jews like to see movies like this.

Cut to: Fatima at her trial. She is asked to stand up to hear the verdict but she refuses. She gets two life sentences for the bomb, plus one more life sentence because she won't stand up. Not standing up to listen to your verdict deserves no less than a life sentence, of course.

Cut to, Miral the character: Miral, a sensual beauty, goes to attend "peace marches." But Israeli soldiers, who obviously cannot stand the sight of peace lovers, shoot them.

So goes "Miral," frame after frame, picture after picture, showing courageous Palestinian beauties suffering under the yoke of the ugly Israelis.

Storyline? Not really. Flesh-and-blood characters? Nowhere in sight. Drama? Maybe five minutes. Acting? Nobody heard that word here. Predictable? Yes. Interesting? No. This is not a real film; it does not even pretend to be. This is an infomercial, and not even a very good one: it is a movie that hardly moves. A cereal commercial has more guts. Is "Miral" one-sided? Yes, on the side of boredom. Is it anti-Semitic, as some claim? No, "Miral" is so boring it never really reaches the level of anti-anything.

"Miral" is a propaganda film that never rises to an art form. To like this movie you must be a hardened believer that all Jews are bad, and you get an extra rush whenever somebody else says this to you, only louder.

The UN, an organization that reportedly cares for the needy, must have felt bad for the producers of this "Miral" people lacking in taste and needy of talent.

Lucky me, as "Miral" ends, Julian Schnabel comes to the stage together with his girlfriend, Rula Jebreal, the Palestinian whose book by the same name was adapted to make this movie.

They are welcomed to loud applause by the audience.

Who are these people? I look around. Mostly Jews.

"Fantastic movie," says a member of the audience. "Did anybody try to keep you from making this movie?"

"What do you think this film contributes or adds to the overall Middle East issues and conflict that we did not know before?" I ask Julian.

Julian gives a long answer: "One thing I think it contributes is, this is a movie that a Jewish man made about a Palestinian girl…it gives credibility to the fact that she actually exists," he begins.

Applause.

"We showed the movie in the United Nations, in the General Assembly," he goes on. "There were people that objected to the movie being shown, because they felt it is supposedly one-sided. They didn't see the movie; they objected on principle."

The audience laughs. They seem to love this man.

Julian, apparently feeling comfortable, now gets to actually answer my question: "It doesn't tell you something that you might not know."

Well, right. The man admits it. He has nothing to tell.

But the Gaza lovers here do not even notice this. They lick their lips in pleasure just at the sight of this man. Encouraged, he goes on: "If we don't partner up with the Palestinian people, there won't be any Palestinians left. If we want to be like the American Indians, where we just basically exterminate all these people…I'm ashamed when I see a kid with side locks and a yarmulke [skullcap] throwing rocks into a Palestinian's house… You can't have a democratic country if Jewish people have rights and Palestinians don't."

Loud applause. Long live Gaza!

He smiles at the applause. Heartened, he keeps going, speaking about Israel: "There's an apartheid state over there and we can't be proud of it."

Apartheid. There we go. This is what this man believes Israel to be. And not only this, there are other things he believes in. For example: "Obama tried to do something about the Settlements when he came into office but the Jewish Lobby beat him down."

Yes, the Jews. The Jews control everything: the U.N., the US, and everything in between. President Obama, let it be known, is under strict control of the Jews.

I must admit: Finally I get to enjoy my movie-going experience this evening. Finally, some real drama! It's certainly not boring anymore. Twelve dollars well spent…

Julian seems to feel good too. He grins, looks around the room, exhales exuberantly. He is full of passion, which would have been good if he had remembered to display some of it in his movie.

Now Julian looks at me, eager for a little fight: "What do you think happened to Obama along the road?" he asks.

Rula comes to my defense. She tries to reason with me: "My country is your country. I wrote something…and I hope it touched you."

Rula shows no hate for Jews. She is a sharp contrast to Julian. She loves her people and fights for them. She knows of the rockets coming out of Gaza directed at civilians on the other side. She has seen the dead Jews, but she is not here to talk about them, she is here to talk about her people; she loves them and stands by them.

Not so Julian. A little man of no talent who apparently cannot stand his people or the fact that he is one of them. A modern-day American Jew.

Rula the Palestinian says not word against the Jews and does not call Israel an apartheid state. She is definitely not a Peace & Love American Jew.

Whoever says that "Miral" is not one-sided should listen to Julian speaking about his fellow Jews. Whoever thinks that Julian is an outstanding director should come and see "Miral." The Nazis made much better anti-Semitic movies than our Jews. At least they understood of the art of movie making.

As for the UN and the General Assembly: Next they should present the Nazi-era movie, "The Eternal Jew." Yes, "The Eternal Jew" depicts Jews as rats, not killers -- that might not be good enough. But, artistically speaking, it is far superior.

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