Posted on 02/22/2007 5:58:10 AM PST by SJackson
Will the Academy Awards ever stop sympathizing with the Palestinian cause?
Given recent history-and one of its chosen nominees for Sunday's Oscars show-that's doubtful.
This year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated "West Bank Story" for Best Live Action Short Film.
A take-off on the movie musical classic, "West Side Story," "West Bank Story" reduces unprovoked Islamic terrorism against innocent, mostly Jewish civilians to a Jets versus Sharks feud, solved with dancing, singing, and hummus. If only it were that simple.
But it isn't. In "West Bank Story," the entire conflict is a matter of feuding kosher and Palestinian falafel restaurants. The entire conflict is solved after 20 minutes of musical numbers and hummus-eating. Apparently, filmmaker Ari Sandel hasn't been paying attention to what really goes on in falafel shops-and behind Israel's green line, not just the West Bank.
Last year, on Mother's Day, American teenager Daniel Wultz died from massive internal injuries he suffered while eating at Mayor's Falafel restaurant in Tel Aviv. He and his father, Tuly Wultz, were having lunch during a Passover visit to Israel. A Miami Heat fan, he dreamed of becoming a rabbi. But there was no singing, dancing falafel musical for him.
Instead of a Natalie Wood-Richard Beymer-style duet, the Wultzes were severely injured after Palestinian Sami Salim Ahmed entered the restaurant, pretending to be a falafel customer. He detonated a homicide bomb.
It was father and son Wultz's last meal together. After losing massive amounts of blood, suffering severe internal injuries, losing a kidney, his spleen, and a leg, the pain was too great, and Danny Wultz died at age 16.
Lior Anidzar, a dirt-poor, working-class Israeli auto mechanic, met the same fate. A Sephardic Jew, the Anidzar family fled the Arab Muslim and its rampant anti-Semitism. But he could not escape it.
Married just two weeks, Anidzar went to a nearby store to take his new wife out to lunch. She was not hungry, so he went by himself to Mayor's Falafel for some falafel and shawarmeh. It was also his last meal. He was murdered at age 26.
The undue early deaths of Daniel Wultz and Lior Anidzar, both Jews, at the hands of Palestinian homicide bomber are illustrative of what's really happening in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And what, far too often, is happening at falafel joints and bars and pizza shops throughout Israel.
It's not a moral equivalency musical, where both sides are equal.
That this 20-minute movie boils it down to both sides fighting for control of the falafel industry is not just silly, callous, and obtuse, it's worse--an abomination of the many living and dead who were maimed, many fatally, by the actions of these joyous people shown dancing over falafel.
This isn't a petty feud over ground chick-peas fried into balls. It's over the right of the Jewish people to live in peace and freedom versus the avowed Islamic goal of annihilating them from the entire State of Israel.
The politics of "West Bank Story's" Director and Co-writer, Ari Sandel, are illuminating. He is a member of several far-left organizations with an admitted agenda in the Middle East. That includes "Peace Now," at whose events Sandel promoted his movie. Peace Now is a far-left group of Israelis that advocates giving the entire West Bank and half of Jerusalem to the Palestinians. It has repeatedly advanced discredited claims of Palestinian ownership of land in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Sandel recognizes a Palestinian state and has traveled to Dubai, where Israeli citizens are not allowed entry due to the Arab Boycott.
Sandel's politics are in line with the apparent thoughts of the Academy.
Last year, "Paradise Now," a movie that sympathizes with Palestinian homicide bombers was among the Academy Award nominees. Fortunately, the Oscar didn't go to that movie.
But in previous years, the Oscars have been the scene for virulent anti-Israel sentiment. In 1978, when Vanessa Redgrave accepted her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, she attacked Israel and "Zionist hoodlums."
Now, those Jews and others who've lost life and limb courtesy of Islamic homicide bombers are reduced to singing, dancing rivals in the falafel world.
Gee, Officer Krupke, give me a break.
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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When you're a jihadi
You're a jihadi all the way
From your first beheading
To the day you blow yourself up
OK, that doesn't quite work, but there it is
When you're Hamas
You're Hamas all the way
From your first Minaret
Till they blow you away
there
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
Schlomo is in love with Fatima
Faaaatiiiiimaaaaa
I just met a girl named Faaaaatiiiiima
And suddenly it seems
That the fact that her people want to blow us up and wipe our country off the map
Doesn't seem like such a big deal
To meeeeeeeee
No.
Next question?
A silly movie, nothing more. Matter of fact, at the end of the movie, the falafel stands are burned down and the star crossed lovers want to move to Beverly Hills.
I know Ari Sandel. He is a fledgling film maker that came up with a movie idea to get him some press. He is far from being some left wing fanatic. You can't say anything about Arabs, Jews, and Israel without pissing off somebody.
They ought to rewrite The Producers
Springtime for jihad
And Achmenidjad
Mullahs all chasing the goats..
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