Jewdar has not seen Miral; chances are, unless it has some animated animals or superheroes, we won’t see it until it reaches Netflix. But if Jewdar does see Miral, it will be in spite of the movie’s ad campaign, not because of it.
Jewdar’s views regarding Palestinian rights are known to all who read us regularly (we’re talking to you, Ima). But our belief in human rights doesn’t blind us to stupid oversimplifications on either side of the Green Line. The movie’s poster, featuring va-voomie Indian actress Frieda Pinto in the role inspired by Miral’s author, even more va-voomie Palestinian writer Rula Jebreal, asks the question “Is This the Face of a Terrorist?”
The suggestion, we suppose, is that Israel must be pretty oppressive to view very attractive young Palestinian women as terrorist threats. To Jewdar, this is about as sophisticated as depicting all Arabs as slavering, kaffiyehed, AK-47 shooting, ululating Arafat look-alikes. How could Israelis possibly view an attractive, young Palestinian woman as a terrorist?
Maybe because of attractive young Palestinian women like Ayat al-Akhras (top), who in 2002, blew herself up, along with 17-year old Rachel Levy(below). So without judging Miral, which we haven’t seen, and the politics of which we probably agree on to a great extent, we ask Miral‘s makers, on behalf of Rachel Levy:
Is this the face of an oppressor?
chk out the ad that ran in the nyt march 20 arts and leisure
Jewdar, This may be one of the best none reviews of a movie I have ever read.
I thought you made a great point here but I would have liked this post a lot more if you hadn’t gotten off all those craven, ritualistic bashes of Israeli policies vis a vis the Palestinians. Most Palestinians I’ve met would prefer to live under an Israeli government than the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. And any Palestinian woman, in particular, is way better off in Israel than under the woman-hating regimes of Fatah or Hamas.
So come off it, Jewdar. Stand up! Man up! Be proud and don’t think you have to “pay” for your pro-Israel post with the ritual genuflections to lefty opinion! Also, you really have to get a moderator for your comments section. Do you really think these Neo Nazis are adding something?
Jewdar, two words: F***ing A.
I win again!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
Looks like most of your readers are Jew-hating fanatics. Congratulations, schmuck. All your bowing down to “Palestinian rights” has gotten you nowhere.
Hey man. Just read some of your other writings on Israel. Your positions are reasonable. Sorry about the previous comment.
hey jewdar….when will stupid jews like you learn…THEY HATE YOU CUZ YOU ARE A JEW….DUMMY
so go to gaza, sing kumbaya with hamas…make it ez for them to cut your dumb head off
Beeble, please go troll Al-Jazeera or better yet the Tehran Times. Israel hasn’t massacred anyone, and if you think otherwise, you’re just a delusional Islamist putz. Pity there are so many of you.
Dan, a lesser man might think you were being sarcastic, but insofar as most non-reviews bash movies that the reviewer has never seen, while I just bashed an ad I had seen, I’ll accept the compliment.
Mcqueen,I forgave you at “Just read some of your other writings…”
Stephanie, nothing craven about believing in democracy. Remember, that’s supposed to be one of Israel’s big selling points, “only democracy in the Middle East,” and all that. A statement like “most Palestinians would prefer Israeli rule” is only meaningful if it’s accompanied by a call for giving Palestinians the right to vote in Israeli elections. Since I don’t want to do that, and I believe in democracy, there seems to be only one alternative. Moreover, I think that in a world of extremism and oversimplifications, it’s a good thing that there are periodically those out there (like Jewdar) who are willing to take positions that challenge stereotypes, i.e., I may be leftie, but that doesn’t mean I’m knee-jerk, or in sympathy with terrorists(are you listening, Walter?).
Hey, Walter, if you can find in any of my voluminous writings any sympathy for Hamas, defense of terror, or anything that would suggest I would sing kumbaya with anyone, please show me (Mcqueen, you got my back, right?). I know Hamas hates me because I’m a Jew, but the last time I checked, not all Palestinians were Hamasniks. I know very well the history of Muslim anti-Judaism. Big reader that I am, I also know of the history of Israeli policy towards Palestinians, which certainly doesn’t justify murdering the Rachel Levys of the world, but certainly shows there’s more to the story than “esav hates yaakov.” I’d suggest reading fewer writers who put everything in caps, and more works by Benny Morris (start with Righteous Victims)
and last but not least, “Heeb is for fags,” I’d say from your lips to God’s ear, as from what I hear, they have lots of discretionary income. “The Big Book of Jewish Conspiracies” makes an awesome gay wedding/civil union present.
The average Israeli hasn’t stolen anything from the Palestinians, just like the average American hasn’t stolen anything from the Indians, or the average Moroccan Arab hasn’t stolen anything from the Berbers.
As for “Palestinians,” there are plenty who want independence, and plenty who want to murder Jews. Hamas is not just anti-Israeli, it’s antisemitic.
FYI Arabs are semites. U live in a fantasy world. Arabic, Hebrew, aramayik r all Semite languages, Yiddish isn’t.
Just like falafel is Arab not Jewish. Why do u eat it?
It’s amazing to me how, with so many outlets for information available on the internet, that people still come to Jewdar to get schooled.
1. The word “Semitic” was drafted in 1781 by the philologist August Schlozer to refer to a family of languages, not ethnicity. Indeed, in the original usage, Schlozer makes explicit that even some people of different ethnic stock spoke Semitic languages. As far as the original usage, people aren’t “Semites,” languages are “Semitic.”
2. As far as that goes, Jews have always used Semitic languages. Leaving aside, of course, that about half of Israel’s Jewish population comes from Jews who lived in the Muslim world (i.e., didn’t use Yiddish), even Yiddish speaking Jews always used Hebrew. Yiddish is written in Hebrew characters, Yiddish has a significant Hebrew component, and, of course, Jews prayed in Hebrew every day and virtually all Jewish literature was written in Hebrew until the 19th century (and Aramaic was used in the Talmud).
3. Whatever “semitic” may mean, or may be intended to mean, “Antisemitic” was a word specifically designed by Wilhelm Marr in 1879 to refer to anti-Jewish racial prejudice. It has absolutely nothing to do with linguistics, or Arabs. If you are the kind of guy who believes in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (which is actually referred to in the Hamas Charter as being the “Zionists'” plan)you are an antisemite, and it doesn’t matter if you speak a semitic language or not.
4. Guess what, the language of Israel isn’t Yiddish, it’s Hebrew. So if your criteria for being a “Semite” is language, the Israelis definitely pass. As for why they speak Hebrew in Israel, see #2, above.”
As for your last point, leaving aside the outright stupidity of the argument (it’s a bit like a German nationalist arguing that frankfurters are a German, not an American food, so why should Americans eat it). Let’s also ignore the fact that nobody knows where or when it was invented, and some suggest it may be Coptic Christian, and that Jews, as part of Middle Eastern society, have been eating falafel as long as Arabs have. I’ll make you a deal. Falafel may be Arabic in origin, but monotheism is certainly Jewish. How about if the Arabs allow us to eat falafel, we allow them to continue to worship one God. Monotheism for mushed chickpeas–Seems like a fair trade to me.
[…] really good party to go to). But are we the only ones who noticed that almost immediately after we took umbrage at Miral’s ad campaign, the poster was changed to the one above, from the one […]