by BENAY BLEND
“Marvel’s new superhero is actually a monster,” explains the writer/activist Susan Abulhawa, “just like the powerful Zionist propagandists doing all they can to normalize their horrendous colonial project.” Included in a forthcoming Marvel film, “Captain America: New World Worder,” Sabra, a Mossad agent, “normalize[s] a state intelligence agency,” writes journalist Ramzy Baroud, “which is known for its numerous bloody assassinations, sabotage and torture.”
The latest Israeli superwoman, Baroud continues, should be placed within a context, that of “the rational progression of the Israelification of Hollywood.” From Paul Newman’s “Exodus” to “Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot, a former Israeli soldier, there has been an increasing effort to justify the creation of the Zionist state, an enterprise that has now moved on to glorifying its forces that uphold the state by any means deemed necessary.
A joint production of Marvel Comic Universe (MCU) and Disney, the comic will have Israeli actress Shira Haas cast as ‘Sabra’ in the upcoming Captain America franchise, New World Order. The character Sabra dates back to a comic book that features the murder of a young Palestinian child, who is portrayed as a criminal, and she has been featured approximately 50 times since, her job mostly fighting “terrorists.” Her appearance has long played a role in Israel’s propaganda war which strives to demonize Palestinians while normalizing the occupation. To Israeli Jews, Sabra means a person born in Israel; to Palestinians, it calls to mind a much more sinister meaning.
Almost immediately Palestinians and their allies around the world responded to the news. In one of the many petitions on social media, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) writes: “For Marvel and its parent company Disney to promote a character that not only normalizes an apartheid government and its murderous intelligence agency, but heroizes and lionizes them is deeply troubling,” and to do so at a time when Israel is under scrutiny for its crimes against humanity, leads AMP to question the very integrity of Disney’s Marvel franchise.
“By glorifying the Israeli army & police, Marvel is promoting Israel’s violence against Palestinians & enabling the continued oppression of millions of Palestinians living under Israel’s authoritarian military rule,” writes the Institute for Middle East Understanding, a U.S.-based organization, on Twitter.
“People forget Baba Walt [founder of Walt Disney studio] was snitching on folks,” recalls activist/organizer Mawusi Ture, “part of all the McCarthy era anti-communism back in the 1950s, 1960s.” Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that the word “Sabra” conjures for Palestinians the memory of the massacre of Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila camps in Lebanon, with help from the Israeli military.
While many lives were destroyed by the McCarthy hearings, very few politicians were held responsible for the gross miscarriage of justice. Similarly, US officials and mainstream media ignored the anniversary of Sabra and Shatila in September, which bizarrely coincided with announcement of the Marvel film.
Shortly after the last election, journalist Jacqueline Luqman wrote:
“I’m sure the Palestinians whose homes are being bulldozed by the apartheid government of You-Know-Where will be happy that the US embassy won’t be moved from where Trump moved, and that the oppression and ethnic cleansing against them will now be carried out with decorum under Biden.”
Palestine Chronicle for more