by B. R. GOWANI
US Hollywood film director Steven Spielberg (C-back) poses with Bollywood filmmakers in Mumbai on March 11, 2013. US director Steven Spielberg is planning to produce a film set partly on the de facto border between India and Pakistan in the disputed Kashmir region, a report said Tuesday. PHOTO/STR/Getty Images/The Epoch Times
The octopus like hold of the Israeli Lobby on the United States Congress, the White House, the news media, the educational institutions, the Hollywood, and what not is in no way letting its grip loosen. The presidents are threatened, the money for election campaigns of the Congresspersons are denied, the reporters reporting the truth or the professors drawing attention to historical facts are fired, the film people sympathizing with the Palestinians against the Israeli atrocities are attacked and some are forced to retreat, and so on.
The CNN reporter Diana Magnay was filing a live report of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. There was a group of people around her who also watched the bombardment. Once she was done with reporting, she tweeted:
“Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land on #gaza; threaten to ‘destroy our car if I say a word wrong.’ Scum.”
The big bosses didn’t like the word “scum”, which was used for the cheering group. After the tweet, Magnay was transferred to Moscow, Russia.
And NBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin was fired for tweeting about the death of four boys, aged 9, 10, 10, and 11, with whom he and other journalists were playing soccer on the beach
And when Israel’s inhuman and illegal criminal violence is questioned or any support for the sieged and dying Palestinians is expressed, then the weapon called “anti-Semite” is used to silence everyone who is drawing attention to Israel’s murderous acts.
Spielberg
Eight and a half years back, film director Steven Spielberg, talking to Germany’s Spiegel Online International, said the following:
“From the day I started to think politically and to develop my own moral values, from my earliest youth, I have been an ardent defender of Israel. As a Jew I am aware of how important the existence of Israel is for the survival of us all. And because I am proud of being Jewish, I am worried by the growing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in the world. In my film I ask questions about America’s war on terror and about Israel’s responses to Palestinian attacks. If it became necessary, I would be prepared to die for the USA and for Israel.”
Spielberg is ready to die for Israel but is not even ready to open his mouth about 1800 or so Palestinian victims of the recent Israeli bombardment. Neither has he come forward to defend those film fraternity members who have criticized the Israeli violence.
Many Spanish film directors, artists, musicians, and writers, including Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Pedro Almodovar, in an open letter to Europa Press condemned Israeli actions in Gaza as “genocide.”.
“[We] condemn the bombing by land, sea and air against the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip.”
“[Israel should] lift the blockade, which the Gaza Strip has suffered for more than a decade.”
“Gaza is living through horror these days, besieged and attacked by land, sea and air. Palestinians’ homes are being destroyed, they are being denied water, electricity [and] free movement to their hospitals, schools and fields while the international community does nothing.”
Under pressure, Cruz and Bardem did a partial retreat. Singer Rihanna had to delete her tweet, supporting the Gazans, within eight minutes.
In March 2013, it was announced that the Hollywood filmmaker Steven Spielberg is to make a movie in India which will be partly shot on the India Pakistan border in the disputed region of Kashmir.
Spielberg should instead make a movie about the illegal creation of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com