COMMENT | Muslims in film |  |
The ten movies Steven Spielberg has yet to make
Imagine if we were in a parallel universe in which Hollywood gave Arabs, Muslims, and Jews a fair shake. Here are ten films (all based on true stories) that are just waiting for Spielberg's magic.
By Mas'ood Cajee, December 8, 2005
Hollywood mogul Steven Spielberg's latest film "Munich" focuses on Israel's efforts to avenge the tragic killings of its athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. Although the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is ripe with great ideas for potential blockbuster films, Hollywood flicks about the conflict have tended to remain formulaic and dehumanizing.
Spielberg hopes "Munich" will be different, and claims he didn't want to make "a Charles Bronson movie - good guys vs. bad guys and Jews killing Arabs without any context." Critics say Spielberg is too pro-Israel to make a fair film about the conflict.
Imagine for a second it is Opposite Day. Imagine we're in some kind of Twilight Zone parallel universe in which Hollywood gives Arabs, Muslims, and Jews a fair shake and peace a fair chance. What kind of movies about the Middle East would we then be chomping Goobers, Junior Mints, and popcorn to at the local twenty screen multiplex?
Maybe these movies might actually be made by some of the 125 Palestinian kids Spielberg is giving video cameras to document their lives. Perhaps a talented few will go on to become big-time Hollywood directors. Here are ten potential films - all inspired by actual events - that are just waiting for the magic of Spielberg & his wannabes:
1. King David Hotel: The bombing of the King David Hotel, which served as headquarters of the British administration in Palestine, killed 91 Arabs, Jews, and Brits in 1946. Two future Prime Ministers of Israel, David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin, masterminded the attack. Disguised as Arabs, members of Begin's Irgun placed 350kg of explosives inside the building. In this action-packed thriller, David (Pierce Brosnan) a British officer ordered to hunt down the killers falls for Margaret (Uma Thurman), an American journalist working for Life Magazine. But is Margaret really in love or is she a secret Zionist assassin out to stop David in his tracks?
2. Nakba: A story of innocent love in a time of war and tragedy. Layla (Penelope Cruz) & Salam (Orlando Bloom) are a Romeo & Juliet against the backdrop of the 1948 Nakba, the Palestinian national catastrophe. During the Nakba, over 700,000 Palestinians fled voluntarily & involuntarily their homes. Can their love survive conflict?
3. USS Liberty: When Israeli boats and fighter jets attack the US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty in the middle of the 1967 Six Day War, 34 US servicemen are killed and 173 are wounded. The official word from Washington and Tel Aviv is that the attack was a mistake. But Brad Pitt & Tom Cruise, who play surviving officers from the Liberty, swear vengeance after discovering that the attack was actually part of a plot to start World War III.
4. Sabra & Shatila: It's 1982 and the war in Lebanon rages on. British war correspondent Robert Fisk (Star Wars star Ewan MacGregor) hides in the camps of Sabra & Shatilla, while a Lebanese militia aided and abetted by Israel slaughters thousands of Palestinian refugees. Sahar (Sandra Bullock) is a Palestinian mother determined to protect her family at any cost.
5. Vanunu: A political thriller set in Israel, Australia, Thailand, England, and Italy. "Syriana" star George Clooney plays Mordechai Vanunu, the nuclear technician who exposes Israel's nuclear weapons program and pays the ultimate price. Nicole Kidman plays Cheryl Bentov, the American Mossad agent who seduces and kidnaps him.
6. Hebron: A story of tragedy and torn loyalties. In 1994, Brooklyn Jewish doctor Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslim worshippers in Hebron, killing 29. Palestinian American Mazen Khalili (Tom Hanks), a State Department official assigned to investigate the massacre, struggles with his job responsibilities and his roots. Leah Rabinowitz (Meg Ryan) is a Jewish American journalist who discovers a dark family secret that will change her life forever.
7. Qana: On April 18, 1996, Israeli shelling of a UN Compound that shelters Lebanese refugees kills more than 100 & injures over 300 men, women, and children. Jessica (Angelina Jolie) is a UN worker determined to let the world know what happened after witnessing the atrocity. Yossi (Robert De Niro) is a Mossad agent assigned to kill Jolie.
8. Gaza: Chris Hedges (Harrison Ford), a New York Times correspondent in Jerusalem, files stories from his hotel room. Hedges reaches a turning point when he witnesses Israeli soldiers killing young Palestinian boys for sport, then defies his editors by writing stories that humanize Palestinians. David Schwimmer & Sarah Jessica Parker make cameo appearances as the parents of Muhammad al-Durra, the 12 year old Palestinian boy killed by Israeli troops in 2000.
9. Rachel: Rachel Corrie (Gwyneth Paltrow) is the idealistic young American activist crushed to death by the Israeli army with a Caterpillar bulldozer. Sally Field, well-known for her role in "Not Without My Daughter", plays Rachel's mother.
10. Refuseniks: When a fellow soldier commits suicide after killing an unarmed pregnant Palestinian woman (played by Natalie Portman) in cold blood, two young Israeli soldiers (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) decide that the occupation and the killing of Palestinians is immoral and unjust.
Mas’ood Cajee lives in San Joaquin County, California. Print-friendly | Email this |  Digg this | | Share on Facebook
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unfortunately, Arabs are NOT running Hollywood, so this post is irrelevant. Power, manipulation, mass media, mass manufacture, weapons of mass destruction, these are not the forte of the Muslim Ummah. Because they require cunning, greed and corruption at a large scale.
Muslims are consigned forever to second class status in this world due to the strong streak of austerity and fatalism that runs through Islamic culture. Groups that promote power and Islamic nationalism tend to eerily resemble their Western counterparts in method, once stripped of the Islamic salad dressings.
- Posted by Asif Khan (Canada) on December 9, 2005 at 05:41 AM LOL, great article!
- Posted by DrM on December 11, 2005 at 09:49 AM I notice that all the pretend movies have an Arab theme. Not all arabs are muslims and not all muslim are arabs.
Are Palestinian fighting for the sake of Allah or for the sake of their land?
- Posted by Dakota on December 11, 2005 at 03:17 PM Mas'ood, great idea for an article. Please try to pitch in the mainstream press or at least something alternative, like [url=http://www.inthesetimes.com]http://www.inthesetimes.com[/url]
Well done. -- Migocup - Posted by Migocup (Just down the block.) on December 11, 2005 at 04:55 PM agree with Dakota. The article was interesting and amusing (you should seriously consider sending this to Spielberg or other more courageous filmmakers with big bucks), but heavily Arab-focused. There's plenty of sh*t going on against Muslims in other parts of the world, including the US of A. That story would probably hit closer to home and be a lot more interesting to movie-goers here.
- Posted by Chaiwoman on December 12, 2005 at 02:50 PM This is not irrelevant. Getting fair representation within Western culture does not require you to be devious (although I am sure it helps, sometimes), and neither are all Muslims fatalistic. Only reactionaries and Muslims steeped in their own victimology are coralled in by such sweeping cultural stereotypes.
- Posted by Yakoub Gura (Huddersfield, UK) on December 13, 2005 at 01:19 PM Dakota & Chaiwoman: I think Mas'ood was focusing on Palestinian storylines specifically as a representation of the "other side" of the Israel/Palestine conflict that is at the center of "Munich".
- Posted by shahed (Austin, TX) on December 14, 2005 at 02:38 PM Aslam a lacum
Shahed
He also speaks of "Arabs and Muslims" as though they are the same. They are not.
- Posted by Dakota on December 15, 2005 at 09:58 PM I cannot agree more with this article. I'm still getting over learning of another blockbuster Steven "propaganda machine" Speilberg "masterpiece" being released. Just when you think people are truly learning some truth about who the real victims are, hollywood, the media and the government come up with something - anything (always fabricated) - to divert our attention, yet again, to the wrong suspect.... the one that works in the zionists favor, of course. The one they've starred as "the suspect" in their hollywood film called real life, starring everyone.
excellent article. I think Muslims, and anyone else who is tired of the old Hollywood Stereotype Propoganda machine (Speilberg should be ashamed of himself, for doing the same thing that Nazi's did in Germany - making films against Jews, etc), should really start interacting with their local media and also writing, producing and distributing their own documentaries and films. In the meantime, someone should pitch these ideas to Michael Moore (I heard his next film will be on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) or "Participant Productions" (who produce "Socially-Concious" films such as "Good Night, Good Luck" and "Syriana"
- Posted by IrfanR (San Jose, CA) on December 29, 2005 at 11:33 PM Yes, films are very powerful, in this country especially (US), they are, unfortunately, the most powerful educator, and Spielberg and Co. know it. I saw Good Night and Good Luck and as scary as the McCarthy era was, I left the theater thinking that living under Zionism is much scarier although most people don't know they're occupied in this country. But they are everywhere, on both sides of the fence, on the fence, under the fence, and heck, they make the fences! Senator McCarthy's scare tactics were short lived and a day at the circus compared to the control held by Zionists in this country then and today. Getting the right kinds of films made would be next to impossible. However, films on the lives of average Arab Americans are certainly in order so that the Average non-Arab American can be provided a real depiction instead of the usual suspect.
The zionist massacre at Deir Yassin was overlooked by Mas'ood Cajee. The book "Deir Yassin Remembered" by Dr. Daniel McGowan is an excellent resource for a film documenting this massacre.
Ali Sinnokrot
- Posted by Khalilsaeed (Dallas, Texas) on December 31, 2005 at 03:18 AM On December 19, 1988, promoter Norman E. Wallen was shot execution style in his Pasadena home. At the time, Mr. Wallen was involved in the production of a movie about the USS Liberty incident.
The Zionists INSIST on a monopoly on Hollywood produced propaganda. For further proof, note Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 which, like Bush, never suggests any connection between 911 and US/Israel foreign policy. Is it possible Moore didn't want to share Norman Wallen's fate?
- Posted by kent on December 31, 2005 at 07:29 AM Someone wrote:
"unfortunately, Arabs are NOT running Hollywood, so this post is irrelevant."
The audience for the article is not Hollywood. The target is others who see the irony...who also buy tickets and make Hollywood what it is. Learn to use media! When you go on TV you never try to influence the host or any opponents. You speak to those in the audience open to your message and those who need to know they are not alone in holding similar views.
If there are a lot of Jews in Hollywood it's because they earned the right. They used humor and creativity and other means to become part of the American fabric. It took a lot of work. For years they faced discrimation and quotas and the like. Watch "Gentlemen's Agreement" and see. Arabs and Muslims need to do the same. Humor humanizes and brings people together. Unless and until Arabs and Muslim in America start ACTING like Americans they will be deemed "others" and marginalized. This article is an excellent example of how to assimilate. Poking fun at established power is as American as, er, Mark Twain pies.
As for Arabs not being Muslims...why nitpick? Isn't good news about either entity to be welcomed?
- Posted by Trevor on December 31, 2005 at 07:06 PM I think a little history and reality is in order here in regards to Trevor's comment. These statements would be true if Hollywood was fair playing ground, but it is not. Despite that the film industry basically began in France with Melies' 1902 film "Le Voyage dans la lune," the rest of the history of movie production happened in the US, and in the early days it was folks like Edison, but film was not taken seriously until much later. I took a history of film class this past summer and in one of the class modules, it stated "Interestingly, the owners of all the major production houses were all first generation Jewish immigrants with little education, yet in charge of the most significant form of mass entertainment in history enjoyed by a vastly Christian population." Now, that was then, but it hasn't changed much. And if anyone understands how Judaism works, which is "to maximize the number of Jews doing Jewish with other Jews" Hillel's motto, you know it hasnÌt changed at all. Granted, gentiles or "heathens" (as the talmud prefers) can work in such a system too but Jews get priority in an effort to remain in the majority rule. You can pretend this isn't true or that I'm "anti-semitic" which you all know is a misnomer and really means nothing, but the fact is, many have tried to get films made. Just read "They Dare to Speak Out" which could actually have been much better, but learn about what happened to people like Vanessa Redgrave and maybe you might catch on to the fact that NO, it's nearly impossible for any of the films listed above to be made in Hollywood or made independently and shown in any major movie house, because many have already tried. If you really believe otherwise, you either don't know the reality of it, or you're afraid to face reality for fear of being labeled "anti-semitic" but don't worry, those of us who are Jewish get that thrown at them too.
I just saw "Munich". It is pro-Israel; to me, the main point was not to condemn the Black September action but to question Israel's tit-for-tat policy, including muted criticism of targeted killings.
The extended shot of the WTC towers from Brooklyn at the end of the movie states clearly that Israel's policies did not solve any problems, only set the stage for more intense attacks.
Many Jews in the US now oppose Zionism; it would be asking a lot for Spielberg to be one of them. Maybe some day...
Concerning Hollywood giving Arabs and Muslims a fair shake - the movie 'Paradise Now' comes as close to that as one could ask at this point in time - I believe it is being distributed by Warner Independent Pictures, mailing address Burbank, CA. Not to say that a poll of people working in motion pictures in southern California wouldn't be strongly pro-Israel. Supporters of Palestinian rights have a lot of work to do in creating favorable public opinion throughout the USA, not just there.
Pete from Oakland, CA
islamicphkr wrote:
>the Islamic Arab chops off heads and lops off hands and ears and eyes."
And the Jewish Israeli shoots Palestinian schoolgirls in the head dozens of times, murdered his own kids at Masada, killed Jesus, led fellow religionists to the gas chamber to selfishly live another day, and so on. You can make any group look evil by taking things out of context or ignoring the good done. Germany used the "Eternal Jew," Russia the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," to marginalize Jews. The mistake was to think that Jews, having endured pogroms and the Holocaust, wouldn't become oppressors once they attained power.
>They murder their own daughters over "honor"...
And state-of-the-art armed IDF soldiers, members of a nuclear-armed state, kill stone-throwing boys because they feel "threatened." Plus Israeli settlers murder muslims at pray because of "yaweh" told them to.
>their religion is one of violence and dehumanization.
Exactly what Nazis said about Jews. Now Judenazis say the same about Arabs and Muslims. So it goes, the circle of demonization.
> the Israelis have turned into those they have had to kill in order to stay alive.
Jews stole land, raped owners' women, terrorized those who stayed behind and justify continued brutal occupation because Arabs had the audicity act like Jews in the Warsaw ghetto by rising up?
>Who isn't nauseated by the virulent anti-semetic rants and raves on Palestinian TV and radio?
How accurately does Israeli TV portray Palestinians? How many Jewish children learn their state was created by terrorists who later became prime ministers? Do they know the IDF was formerly the Haganah, a terrorist group? Do they hear how Jews smuggled weapons illegally? And aren't Arabs semites, too?
>Jews are responsible for the tsunami; jews are descended from monkies...
How do the "chosen people" demonize others? Israeli Arabs are treated like slaves. Gentiles are deemed heathens. Jewish men thank god they are not women.
>hate filled diatribe used down throughout the ages against jewish people...
Now with their own state, Israelis spew hate-filled diatribes against Arab people.
> it has become part and parcel of Islamic culture to demean and defile and disrepect Christianity and Judiasm.
What of Arabic hospitality, love of learning, sense of honor, respect for other cultures? How much empire-building and other-enslaving has been done by Christians and Jews?
- Posted by Trevor on January 1, 2006 at 10:18 PM islamicphkr wrote:
>The average Arab now blames all of his faults and problems on jews
Whereas Jews blame the entire world. They want Palestinians to forget about the right-of-return while suing everyone under the sun for lost savings, art, etc. during the 19302-40s. As for making the desert bloom, absent billions of US dollars, Israel would be a backwater desert dump. The Holocaust is now a massive extortion racket. Methinks Israel should be moved to the North Pole.
>[Arabs avoid] taking responsibility .....
This is laughable. Israeli exists on handouts. It's a morally-bankrupt socialist state that depends on America acting like Uncle Sucker. Sooner or later that will end. Then the wall now suppressing Palestinians might keep the world out. Watch what happens when the world boycotts Israel.
>America....should [not] even make room for those who practice Islam.
Maybe America should bring back quotas for Jews, too. Remember the Holocaust? "Hymies Need Not Apply" was the motto at passport offices. Policies that exclude Muslims could easily exclude Jews...again.
>It is a religion of violence and it has been dedicated since the Crusades to destroying Western civilization.
The Crusades sought to impose religion by the sword. Islamists were right to oppose civilizations that endorsed them. Or were Germans right to "crusade" against Jews in the 1930s and bring them closer to God via the Ash Autobahn?
Israel is one of the most violent societies today, the last remaining colonial power since South Africa was forced to grow up. Why pretend otherwise?
>islamic fundamentalist who so hates the west is the first to embrace the technology produced by the west. What hypocrisy !
Israelis love technology just like Germans did. Why, then, don't Jews love German history? Just because you like certain aspects of a country doesn't mean you have to like them all. Japan is famous for imitating Wesern practices while staying Eastern. Could it be Islamists hate being dominated by the West, not any or all of its culture?
Some Hassidim are so hate-filled they seem like devil-worshipers. They hate everything non-Jewish, yet they live parasitically among goyim. Are they hypocrites, too?
Let Jews and Israelis confess their sins before condemning others.
- Posted by Trevor on January 1, 2006 at 10:31 PM Why is it, when supposedly educated individuals discuss Zionism someone always seems to bring up Joe McCarthy and his deeds. Does not anyone realize that McCarthy has been vindicated by the opening of the KGB files and those that he brought forth as communists were also Zionist?
Well cast, Mas'ood. Big changes in all human history are nearly upon us. Global warming and other eco-crises, peak oil, a potential shake-up in elite economies (precipitated by overconfidence among militarists as the dollar meets 21st century reality), greater commitment to international law (a challenge to the US), and more may converge in a way that forces old regime families implicated in crimes against humanity to wake up. Of course the extremes of wealth and poor won't cut it, and after the above crises converge (unavoidable now, at the rate such are going) the greater need will cause both the masses, and conceivably some elite actors to compel a finer order of law. It will be do or die for the entire planet.
The best route there? Massive exposures of corruption in the old regime, coupled with a good streak of anti-"super" polarities, and common sense. Either we expose the old regime (can be done bloodlessly, but with some sacrifice) or we all suffer misery and loss of planetary ecology.
Extra "entities" are monitoring our plight and major, unexpected news is gradually leaking out about the biggest surprise of the century: scandal and nearly unbelievable coverup in the Anglo-American black budget structure. There IS a kind of universal justice and it coheres within nonviolent equality, shared resources and openness of mind.
- Posted by George (California) on January 2, 2006 at 05:06 AM Page 1 of 4 1 2 3 > Last »
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altmuslim this week - november 23, 2009 - This week, Thanksgiving and hajj make a joint appearance, US retailer Best Buy reaches out to Muslims with an Eid greeting, and a list of the world's 500 most influential Muslims has many scratching their heads (except those who were chosen) 
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Win tickets to see “Journey to Mecca” in London - Voting for the Brass Crescent Awards has begun and for our British participants, we're offering five pairs of tickets to see a special IMAX screening of " Journey to Mecca," a documentary that tells the story of Ibn Battuta and the hajj (November 16, 2009)
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Recent and upcoming talks and offsite articles by altmuslim contributors
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