Mel Gibson's New Film, The Pashern a' the Chrisssshhtht

[parma_violets]

Best week ever for pissed celebrities; Mel Gibson is arrested for driving while pished, and the resulting feeling of indignity opens up his nastiest side with a tide of anti-Semitic abuse

Comments

hi

[la_pasionaira]

can i ask you a question?
regardless of mel gibson who i dont know anything about.
why cannt we condemn israel? why cannt we condemn the jews? without being acussed of antisemitism which i must admit i dont know what it means

the jews were prosecuted in germany . why are they now prosecuting the palestinians and libanese?

what is this antisemitism ? the bbc is accused of it as well as the inteligent press. Anyone who is against the Israel brutality and its oppression is accused of it .
i just dont get it.

This is practically a novel, I know

[parma_violets]

This is a very prickly issue, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if you started my LJ's first ever comments war. ;) Just warning you.

Broadly, I think the difference between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism (which means a racial dislike of Jewish people) is the difference between saying "I really hate the way America's behaving at the moment" and "I really hate Americans". One is a strongly-worded but essentially fair criticism of a country's policies and the other is a statement of prejudice against a whole people.

The stakes are a bit higher with Jews because of the centuries of prejudice they've already endured. Ever since the Crusades made the Middle East unsafe for them, they've been the target of some of the most long-lasting and persistent attempts at elimination any race has ever suffered. They were seen for much of the Twentieth century in the same light as gypsies - ie. that hating Jews wasn't really racism, it was just an understandable dislike, in the same way that idiots now try and justify away their

Re: This is practically a novel, I know

[la_pasionaira]

thanks for your reply. if there was going to be a war. this would be a civil war of words, Can you throw a missile though the net

Re: This is practically a novel, I know

[parma_violets]

Here's an example of why I feel the way I do. Holocaust Memorial Day is a day for the remembrance of all victims of the Nazi Shoah - Jewish, disabled, gypsy, gay, socialist, all of them. Iqbal Sacranie, who was then secretary of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, objected to the narrow focus of the day. Fair enough, if he wanted to start genocide day, he was chairman of one of the most powerful lobby groups in Britain. He could do that.

Except he wanted the ceremony to be less inclusive as well as more inclusive. It is the Jews, to me, who are willing to be more inclusive. It is my fellows on the left who I'm afraid seem to be suffering from tunnel vision

[baron_scarpia]

Maybe I'm sheltered, maybe I don't move in such circles, maybe I'm simply lucky, but I've never encountered anti-semitic feeling in my personal life. Certainly you see it in publications and so forth, but the subject just doesn't come up amongst the people I talk to. I will say, however, that the Jews I have met have struck me as no worse than anyone else, and I don't assume anything on the basis of their race or religion

[parma_violets]

A friend of mine came up with an interesting theory that the movement of UN forces into the Israeli-Lebanese border is a stealth move to reshape the Middle East in accordance with American principles (because, for all the Bush administration moans about the evil UN, they are still the most powerful country in terms of influencing policy and they know it).

I, of course, told him that he was being unreasonable and paranoid. I mean, Western forces assuming the Middle East is their own personal sandbox to reshape at will? Pshaw! Whoever heard of such a bizarre and unthinkable situation! I am, in fact, a ninety-year-old maiden aunt!

I knew the Israel discussion would come up at some point on my LJ, and I feel genuinely happy to have heard other views on the matter and debated them tolerantly. I just can't understand how all this harmony came out of Mel Bloody Gibson...

[mayaserana]

There's just something really unlikable in Mel Gibson. Never been able to put my finger on what exactly.

[parma_violets]

I can't quite put my finger on it either. He's been crazy for so long that I can't remember how I reacted to him when he was sane, but I'm pretty sure I didn't have much time for him then either.

Perhaps it's because I like my actors to be more like Al Pacino or Catherine Keener, people who act like crazy debauched sadistic psychos on screen, then go home and be nice and normal and - yes - kind of boring. Mel appears to have got this the wrong way round.