"Paradise Now": Anti-Semitic Movie Co-Financed by German Authorities

In an earlier post, I published excerpts of a critical review of the film “Paradise Now” from the daily newspaper WELT and lent my support to the critique. I have to admit that I hadn’t seen the film myself at that time.

I’ve now corrected this. It was a terrible experience.

“Paradise Now” is the first openly anti-Semitic film I’ve seen in the German cinema. Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of the numerous Germans who collaborated in its production (the film is distributed by Constantin Film/Munich). He would have praised in glowing terms the fact that the German taxpayer ponied up an essential contribution to the production costs. The materials for discussion of the film in German schools authored by a federal authority from the Central Office for Political Education (BPB) would have met with his grinning approval.

Our first posting dealt with the plot. In summary, young Palestinian men gratefully accept a command from a Palestinian terror group (my interpretation, not the film’s) to assassinate Israelis in Tel Aviv. After a few false starts one of the men carries out the assassination – a suicide attack in a bus.

The film’s action, especially the dialogs and discussions between the main characters, portrays the conflict between two positions. First position:

The Israelis are criminal occupiers who oppress the Palestinians. They must be combated with assassination and force.

Second position:

The Israelis are criminal occupiers who oppress the Palestinians. They must be combated with peace activists’ non-violent demonstrations.

The film leaves open which of the two positions is the right one. The only thing certain in the film is the guilt and malice of the Israelis, the “occupiers”. It’s not worth going into detail about the film’s striking polemics against the Israelis. No attempt is undertaken anywhere in the film to explain the Israelis’ position. Almost all of the Israelis appear in the film as soldiers - intimidating, menacing, anonymous, occasionally with sadistic impulses.

While the Palestinians, without exception in the German version, speak at length in flawless German, there’s only one place in the whole film where an Israeli speaks a sentence - German, but with an unpleasant accent.

Of all things, this one Israeli with at least a minimal script presence had to inveigh against his fellow citizens’ wealth – a character quirk from the Nazis’ anti-Semitic films with which older Germans will be quite familiar.

(Click on pic to enlarge)

Instructing a Palestinian suicide bomber how to
kill Jews. Scene from a film co-financed by German authorities.

The film expresses no moral criticism of the Palestinian suicide attackers’ practice of murdering Israeli civilians. The only thing under dispute is whether suicide attacks actually weaken the “occupiers”. In one of the film’s most ridiculously revisionist scenes, the main character shrinks from the bomb attack

at the last moment, because there’s a little kid on the bus – as though the history of Palestinian suicide attacks weren’t synonymous with a history of murdering countless innocent women, children and other civilians. At the film’s conclusion, the screenplay replaces the suicide attack with one on a bus full of Israeli soldiers. The suicide enjoys the mitigating aura of a quasi-military action.

The material from the Central Office for Political Education accompanying this film is a scandal all it’s own. The Central Office for Political Education is a federally directed and financed institution. Matthias Küntzel writes in the Transatlantic Intelligencer regarding this material:

"With this brochure, (this) public agency is acting as a Central Office for Middle East Disinformation and Terror Acceptance. While one could give the movie itself the innocuous label of an “artwork”, the brochure falls into another category: that of a state-sponsored political and educational initiative. These materials do not call into question empathy with anti-Jewish mass-murderers, but rather expect it. Here the history of the Middle East conflict is not set straight, but rather distorted in such a way as to encourage an uncritical reception of “Paradise Now”. The brochure is politically and morally unacceptable. (…)

Instead of encouraging students to maintain a critical distance from “Paradise Now”, the BPB reproduces the movie’s anti-Zionist fury in its own “worksheet” for instructional use. In the presentation for the students, the policy of dialog and negotiation with Israel is not even mentioned as an option. Instead, Assignment 1 offers the following three statements for discussion: “Whoever fears death is already dead”, “No freedom without struggle”, and “Resistance can take many different forms”. Students are supposed to work in small groups to gather arguments that "either support or refute" these statements and to illustrate their arguments with examples. Resistance against Israel, struggle against Israel, killing yourself against Israel – just as in the movie, no other form of conflict resolution makes an appearance in this lesson plan. (…)

A critical guide to the film would not only have deciphered the anti-Semitic code words. It would also have had to draw attention to Palestinian anti-Semitism, such as comes to light in its most radical form in the Hamas Charter and the Hizbollah TV channel Al-Manar. But the concept of anti-Semitism does not appear anywhere in the entire brochure. Even Hizbollah is presented innocuously as an “organization with an anti-Zionist orientation.” (…)

Just as in the film, also in its brochure, the few critical objections that one can find against suicide attacks are tactically motivated and subordinated to the broad anti-Israeli lines of the presentation.“

For the sensitive souls of the German left, the distributor placed a quote from Bill Clinton on the film poster! But his unequivocal condemnation of terror finds no echo in the film.

One of the many scandals surrounding the film is the financial support that “Paradise Now” received from the “Nordrhein-Westfalen Film Fund” (Filmförderung Nordrhein-Westfalen). One of its members – along with public and private TV institutions – is the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen, represented by the newly elected (conservative) minister president Jürgen Rüttgers. Maybe you’d like to send him an e-mail with your opinion of “Paradise Now”.

If there’s any positive experience from my viewing of the film “Paradise Now”, it’s this: The theater was only about 5% full. I presume the distributor will quickly pull the film from German theaters on financial grounds. I also certainly assume that we’ll meet the film again on public TV all gussied up in a politically correct interpretation.

(I seriously recommend that you read the whole article of Matthias Küntzel, of which only excerpts are presented here, in the Transatlantic Intelligencer. Also worth reading, albeit in German, is the report from a public discussion with the film’s co-producers).

(Translation by Richard Bartholomew)

Comments

[jovember]

"Out there, in the world, all the walls were covered with graffiti: 'Yids, go back to Palestine,' so we came back to Palestine, and now the world-at-large shouts at us: 'Yids, get out of Palestine.'" -- Amos Oz

[JJfromBa]

Worst of all, if you go to the film's official (English-language) website, at http://wip.warnerbros.com/paradisenow/ and click on "gallery", and then click the arrows, you'll find in the very last picture a lovely little scene of suicide bombers in what is clearly a representation of da Vinci's Last Supper. Wow - suicide bombers as Jesus.

[M.S.]

Well, my first anti-Semitic film I've seen in a german cinema was an US-American production called "The Passion Of Christ". It was about a pretty handsome looking Jesus Christ surrounded by lots of extreme ugly and shabby looking Jews who wants to kill him! Maybe Joseph Goebbels and the Reichspropagandaministerium was the Co-producer too - who knows? But I'm sure like so many other Hollywood flicks, these US-production used german money too!

PS: "The Passion" was a big success in the United States and a big flopp in Germany!

[Gabi]

Heute am Sonntag um 23.45 Uhr, Hessen:

Esther Schapira: Der Tag, als ich ins Paradies wollte.

Bitte gucken.

[Elmo]

Clarity ..... moral clarity. Any clarity at all? Seemingly non-existent in today's world. Buried. Buried so deep, that when unearthed, no one can recognize it. As if never seen or witnessed before. Even for a moment.

We however can give thanks. And can be grateful. For those who uncover the truth. For those who hold it aloft, for all to see.

Thank You.

From IMDb. 'The War Within.'
"a brave and true vision of what a fanatical suicide bomber lives, what drives him. so beautifully shot, and sad to see how a man can lose all that he loves . a touching, brave film"

http://www.magpictures.com/profile.aspx?id=d77ea8ae-5629-4dc9-a13d-14d801768e9d

[kid charlemagne]

One of the more disgusting aspects of this film is that the guy who directed is an Israeli citizen, an Israeli Arab to be more precise. But he strongly objects to this designation, saying he's a Palestinian with an Israeli passport. So he enjoys the benefits of Israeli citizenship while making films which calling for violence (or "understanding" violence) against Israeli Jews.

[Assistant Village Idiot]

The discussion whether The Passion of Christ was antisemitic was pretty rapid and easily disposed of in America.

As to all that German money -- gee, you wouldn't happen to making unevidenced assumptions, wouldya?

I never thought I would see the day -- chilling and sad.

[FranzisM]

This appears to be a remake of The Third Generation (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978) in a middle-eastern setting:

The film is about a cell of "third generation" terrorists, earnest, humorless, committed, largely middle-class boobs for whom terrorism has become a style of living without connections to political passions of any sort. They include Hilde (Bulle Ogier), the history teacher; Edgar (Udo Kier), a composer who doesn't compose very often; his wife, Susanne (Hanna Schygulla), the secretary; Rudolf Mann (Harry Baer), a clerk in a record store; Petra (Margit Castensen), a bored wife, and August (Volker Spengler), the always busy self-important leader of this particular cell of terrorists. They are small-timers with access to real explosives, and there's not a single coherent political idea among them.

It's not by chance that whenever we see the conspirators, either singly or in various combinations, we always see a television set flickering somewhere in the vicinity. What ideas they do possess have arrived predigested, second- or third-hand, and have more to do with fashion than with intellect. They ridicule mercilessly a young man who comes into their midst with a suitcase loaded with books — books! — the weightier passages of which have been laboriously underlined with a pencil.

These people are mutations, distant spinoffs of the members of the notorious Bader-Meinhof gang. They are people for whom political commitment is a matter of secret passwords, disguises and assumed names. Unknown to them, but apparent to the audience early on, is that they are being manipulated by a rich, influential businessman, played by the venerable Eddie Constantine, who orchestrates their activities to increase his sales and to frighten the Government into taking more repressive measures against the Left. The only character in the film who has the slightest suspicion about what's going on is the police inspector, played by Hark Bohm, who is himself an assassin of sorts.

The original is quite funny to watch today as it mirrors the author's belief that computers were evil. Oh the 1970s!

[FranzisM]

This is not only a problem of the German government but also of international organizations:

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL FILM PRIZE The German branch of "amnesty international" will award the Amnesty International Film Prize for the first time at the Berlinale 2005. This award has already been presented at other international film festivals. The prize is worth 2,500 Euros. The jury will view films entered into the Competition, Panorama and Forum sections, paying special attention to documentaries. The aim of the prize is to draw the attention of audiences and representatives of the film industry to the theme of human rights and encourage filmmakers to tackle this topic.

The members of the jury, Nina Hoss, Christoph Friedel, Brita Lax-Engel, award the Amnesty International Film Prize to

PARADISE NOW by Hany Abu-Assad

Paradise Now is a small story about a major conflict - moral but not moralizing; moving without being sentimental. A film, that forces one to think, without trying to teach a lesson. A story that shows that every individual can make a difference.

Which is how Fassbinder could have described his 1978 movie.

[Pamela]

@M.S.
>>Well, my first anti-Semitic film I've seen in a german cinema was an US-American production called "The Passion Of Christ".

I am a Jew. I have seen "The Passion of THE Christ". It is not anti-Semitic. It accurately reflects the divisions within Jewish society of that time that made some Jews passively complicit in Jesus' execution.

That later Christians used that to soak Jews with Jesus' blood does not make that movie anti-Semitic.

Learn your history.

And for your information, Mel Gibson filmed his own arm/hand as participating in the crucifixation as a symbol of what Christians believe - Jesus THE Christ died for ALL of our (yep, even me) sins.

[playertwo]

the 'arabs' that are in these movies and movements are as marxist as the german liberals that help them get made. it never ceases to amaze me how relatively rich people's sense of pride and fear of marginalization can drive them to these egotistical extremes as championing a arab dictator against democratic israel.
now mark cuban is jumping in and making comsymp movies to assuage his guilt and hopefully buy some friends.
I just can't see why israel holds back and let's itself get so screwed over. oh well, i guess they are so used to it that they give up...
socialists and all other altruistic movements are just blinded and might as well be cave fish.

i keep an eye out for this stuff and see it all over.
catholics that make their own movies get called nazis, but bloodthirsty arabs get german tax money.
chilling.

[Mike H.]

Pamela, you're a class act, and a hard one to follow. You too P2

M.S. get a life. I'm a Christian and I would like all the Jews to move out of Germany and France, to America where I am. It would make me feel better to know they were safe.

[Pamela]

@MikeH
>>It would make me feel better to know they were safe

Not to worry. It will never happen again.

You know, it's funny. Jesus never railed against the Romans, only against his own people, the Jews. You would think that alone would give people pause as to the condition of Jewish society at the time. It wasn't the Romans changing money in the Temple.

We are so steeped in the Talmudic way of thinking, law is almost a natural profession for many of us. The funny part of that is, in my imagination I see Jesus sitting at Yahweh's feet - studying The Law of Unintended Consequences......LOL!.

[Pat Patterson]

Caption; "Ahmed you won the coin flip and get to wear the bustier for our revival of Charley's Aunt".

[M.S.]

Well Pamela, it seems your jewish compatriots in Germany don't share your positive view about this film! The execution of Christ was the beginning
of western antisemitism...

[Dan Kauffman]

It was about a pretty handsome looking Jesus Christ surrounded by lots of extreme ugly and shabby looking Jews who wants to kill him! Maybe Joseph Goebbels and the Reichspropagandaministerium was the Co-producer too - who knows? But I'm sure like so many other Hollywood flicks, these US-production used german money too!

PS: "The Passion" was a big success in the United States and a big flopp in Germany!

Posted by: M.S. | October 16, 2005 at 09:02 PM
****************************************************
Point of information, shouldn't that be a
"a pretty handsome looking JEWISH Jesus Christ, surrounded by lots of extreme ugly and shabby looking OTHER JEWS who want to kill him?

PS didn't you leave out all the Jews who did not want to kill him?

[Dan Kauffman]

Well consider this propaganda film just practice for the future.

The economics and population demographics of Europe indicate a crisis in the next generation or so.
The time will come when the ills of Society can no longer be blamed upon the US or the Jews and there is a very real danger of Europe turning upon the large numbers of ghettoised Muslim immigrants. There is historical precedent for this as well as the possible return of Facist Governments to institue a 21st Century Final Solution say about 2030 to 2050.

[flux]

Henryk M. Broder had published a review of the film (in German) at SpOn about three weeks ago.

FranzisM, Fassbinder's film was a satire, mocking the terrorists. Don't know if the same holds true with this film.

[Pamela]

@M.S.
>>The execution of Christ was the beginning
of western antisemitism...

M.S., I really have no interest in a discussion with anyone so willfully ignorant of history. The crucifixtion of Jesus was a political excuse to justify what already existed.

You might want to read up on the history of ursury. After that I would recommend Paul Johnson's "History of the Jews". It's fairly easy reading.

@Dan Kauffman
>>there is a very real danger of Europe turning upon the large numbers of ghettoised Muslim immigrants

I agree there is that danger. But I think the more likely scenario is all those ghettoised Muslim immigrants turning on their European host bodies.

Think 'cancer'.

[Gabi]

Allgemeines Thema, kommt mir gerade in den Kopf, als ich die Tagesschau geguckt und Nachrichten im WDR 2 gehört habe.

Die Tagesschau manipuliert heimlich:

In Rußland greifen die Rebellen an, im Irak sind es die amerikanischen Soldaten, die Rebellen angreifen. Diese unterschiedliche Betrachtungsweise sagt natürlich etwas aus, und die Worte sind bewußt gewählt.

Daß russisches Militär in der letzten Woche auch Zivilisten getötet hat, kommt erst verzögert in die Tagesschau und wird gerade ein einziges Mal zur Hauptsendezeit um 20.00 Uhr erwähnt. Amerikanische Verteidigungshandlungen gegen Terroristen sind dagegen Angriffe. Und immer ist ein völlig neutraler Terrorist dabei, der dann die zivilen Opfer angeben kann (Ironie):

Rund 70 Tote bei US-Luftangriff im Westirak

Durch amerikanische Luftangriffe im Irak sind nach Angaben der US-Streitkräfte 70 Menschen getötet worden. Den Angaben zufolge handelte es sich bei allen Opfern um Aufständische; irakische Augenzeugen sprachen hingegen von mindestens 39 getöteten Zivilisten.

http://www.tagesschau.de/aktuell/meldungen/0,1185,OID4852088_TYP6_THE_NAV_REF1_BAB,00.html

Rebellenangriff in Südrussland
Rebellen haben in Südrussland eine Stadt angegriffen. Bei den Gefechten in Naltschik gab es Tote und Verletzte. Dort wird noch immer gekämpft. Die Armee riegelte den Ort ab. Seit dem Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion lehnen sich in Südrussland immer wieder Rebellen gegen die russische Staatsmacht auf. Naltschik ist die Hauptstadt der Republik Kabardino-Balkarien. Extremisten aus Tschetschenien bekannten sich zu dem Angriff.

http://www.tagesschau.de/sendungen/0,1196,OID4851228_OIT4851240,00.html

Weitere Geiseln befreit
Nach dem Rebellenüberfall in der russischen Stadt Naltschik haben die Sicherheitskräfte die Situation weitgehend unter Kontrolle gebracht. Spezialeinheiten stürmten meherere Gebäude und befreiten weitere Geiseln. Nach offiziellen Angaben wurden mehr als 70 Aufständische getötet, außerdem 36 Polizei-Angehörige und Zivilisten. Gestern hatten mindestens 100 Bewaffnete Naltschik angegriffen - die Hauptstadt der Teilrepublik Kabardino-Balkarien nahe Tschetschenien.

http://www.tagesschau.de/sendungen/0,1196,OID4854418_OIT4854436,00.html

Bassajew bekennt sich zu Angriffen
Der tschetschenische Rebellen-Führer Bassajew soll sich zu den Angriffen auf die Stadt Naltschik bekannt haben. In einer Internet-Erklärung heißt es, er sei für die Leitung der Attacken in der russischen Kaukasus-Republik Kabardino-Balkarien verantwortlich. Bei den Kämpfen in Naltschik Ende vergangener Woche waren mehr als hundert Menschen getötet worden.

http://www.tagesschau.de/sendungen/0,1196,OID4860672_OIT4860684,00.html

Auch wenn es um Israel geht, gibt es eine erhellende Taktik.
Israelische Tote haben oft erst dann einen Nachrichtenwert, wenn das israelische Militär reagiert oder kurz davor steht zu reagieren. Die drei Israeli, die man an einer Haltestelle abgeknallt hat, sind es allein nicht wert, berichtet zu werden. So minimiert man die palästinenesische Brutalität:

Angriffe auf Israelis im Westjordanland
Bei Anschlägen militanter Palästinenser im Westjordanland sind mindestens drei Israelis getötet worden. Medien berichteten, Palästinenser hätten bei Jerusalem aus einem fahrenden Auto heraus das Feuer auf eine Gruppe Israelis eröffnet. Als Reaktion wird Israel wieder Truppen rund um Städte im Westjordanland stationieren. Israelische Soldaten töteten bei einem Feuergefecht in der Nähe von Dschenin im Westjordanland ein führendes Mitglied der radikalen Palästinenserorganisation Islamischer Dschihad.

http://www.tagesschau.de/sendungen/0,1196,OID4859750_OIT4859760,00.html

Auf diese Weise manipuliert man durch Wort- und Themenauswahl.
Wie kommt es, daß über russische Militäraktionen anders berichtet wird als über amerikanische?

[Toby]

@ M.S.

"...it seems your jewish compatriots in Germany don't share your positive view about this film!"

Says who ? Spiegel Online ?
Btw: Are you implying, by using "jewish compatriots", that jewish german citizens are not part of the german nation ?

"The execution of Christ was the beginning of western antisemitism".

Nonsense. That reasoning is worhty of some papal high inquisitor in the 1500s. "They killed Jesus, that's why we hate them".

Do you have anything to say about the movie in question here ? The one "explaining" the reasoning behind the slaughter of innocent israelis ?

[Toby]

@ M.S.

"...it seems your jewish compatriots in Germany don't share your positive view about this film!"

Says who ? Spiegel Online ?
Btw: Are you implying, by using "jewish compatriots", that jewish german citizens are not part of the german nation ?

"The execution of Christ was the beginning of western antisemitism".

Nonsense. That reasoning is worhty of some papal high inquisitor in the 1500s. "They killed Jesus, that's why we hate them".

Do you have anything to say about the movie in question here ? The one "explaining" the reasoning behind the slaughter of innocent israelis ?

[Toby]

@ Pamela

"But I think the more likely scenario is all those ghettoised Muslim immigrants turning on their European host bodies".

A very likely scenario indeed. Just last weekend, a cell of terrorists was arrested in the Netherlands. Apparently their plan had been to blow up a cabinet meeting in the hague. sounds like cancer to me. but maybe some liberal movie maker will find an excuse for those actions, too.

[FranzisM]

@flux: Fassbinders movie has the same lack of recognition that terrorism might be morally wrong, and the only thing under dispute is whether it actually can weaken the perceived enemy. And Abu-Assad's film also is a satire of sorts, when the suicide bombers produce their farewell recruitment videoclip, the outgoing terrorist has to repeat his speech due to a camera failure, but fails to perform for a second cut when he sees the leader of the terror cell eat the breadrolls that the bomber's mother has prepared for her son.

[Teutone]

The review by Jewish author Henryk M. Broder in the Spiegel doesn't quite give the impression of an antisemitic movie.
Btw, the purpose of cinema is not to educate people. Movies aren't required to include an educational message. They can simply show and document a perspective, even if that perspective may be problematic. The audience is capable of deciding for themselves what's right or wrong. Everything else would be "Meinungsdiktatur" (don't know how to transpalte this).

[Pamela]

Meinungsdiktatur

I'm translating that as 'to dictate the statement'. There is no good English equivalent, but we get the idea.

[jaed]

"Didacticism"?

Instead of encouraging students to maintain a critical distance from “Paradise Now”, the BPB reproduces the movie’s anti-Zionist fury in its own “worksheet” for instructional use.[...] “Whoever fears death is already dead”, “No freedom without struggle”, and “Resistance can take many different forms”.

I wonder whether the idea is to prepare these children mentally and emotionally for future action. This does sound remarkably like an assignment that might be given in a Hezbollah school in Gaza. Yes, that's very paranoid, but in these times I'm not sure it's possible to be paranoid enough about such things...

[Pamela]

@jaed
>> I wonder whether the idea is to prepare these children mentally and emotionally for future action.

Several threads ago (perhaps on the US flag draped coffins) the poster N. Hale (American living in Germany) noted that not a few of his students let him know something to the effect of 'Yes, well, you defeated us the last time, but we'll win the next time'.

You may very well have a distinctly ugly point.

[Toe-pi]

As far as I'm concerned, I would translate "Meinungsdiktatur" with "dictatorship of opinion." It depends, as always, on the context.

Paradise Now is the renaissance of Leni Riefenstahl's movies in the 21st century. It seems as if Henryk M. Broder and some others have seen a completely different film. There is no need for Al-Qaeda to spread anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda. The West itself is against the West - and that is exactly the problem.

[fuchur]

@jaed

It´s scary what kind of absurd nonsense people can be lead to believe when it comes to Germany :-(
German schools are secret training facilities for suicide bombers??

in these times I'm not sure it's possible to be paranoid enough about such things

Right. Always wear your tinfoil hat ;-).

[Andrew Ian Dodge]

One of the wonderful tricks judenhass use is that ole' adage the Jews killed Jesus and started anti-semitism. Its crap, of course, as Jesus was executed by the Romans for causing a rebellion amongst his fellow Jews. As someone stated above European anti-semitism began when Popes began to state that "Jews killed Jesus". This book is a good place to start.

Jews are not at fault for hatred of Jews...those who hate Jews are at fault.

[WhatDoIKnow]

This movie is "art" because it masochistically presents the preparations and details that go into making the supreme sacrifice, killing pig Jews. Historically seen, who else is better suited to finance such a piece of "art" than branches of German government ? Wer, wenn nicht wir!

The Jews have achieved a seemingly impossible task. They united the extremes, they built a bridge between the Left and the Right and this bridge is heavily used. Who else if not the Jews, in their infinite wickedness would be able to accomplish this ?

What is extremely disturbing is not that there are "film makers" who would produce such excrements and try to commercialize them. There will always be people like that, that's nothing new. What is disgusting and appaling is that there are many more people and institutions who applaud and greedily devour those excrements. It is the presence of those that make it clear that the ghosts of the Holocaust have never completely left, they just hang around and now they return in a different colored garment (red instead of brown).

[amiexpat]

@WhatDoIKnow
red instead of brown?
try rot/grün instead of brown..
plus yellow (FDP - Mölleman)
even schwarz at times..
sad..

[Cue Bickle]

The Tel Aviv production company Lama Films helped to finance this movie. The film is now being screened at the Haifa Film Festival and opening in Israel. Do you remember that France banned "Paths of Glory" for many years. And so did the United States with "A King in New York". I'm impressed with Israel.

[Yehudit]

"It accurately reflects the divisions within Jewish society of that time that made some Jews passively complicit in Jesus' execution."

It also contains visualizations of the writings of an 18th c. nun, which depict Jews negatively far beyond what the Gospels do.

"Jesus never railed against the Romans, only against his own people, the Jews. You would think that alone would give people pause as to the condition of Jewish society at the time. It wasn't the Romans changing money in the Temple."

Money-changing was not a negative act! People came from all over Israel to the Temple at harvest festivals. They were away from home for days. The area around the Temple was full of vendors selling food and sundries, changing money, and anything else a traveller would need. So this says nothing bad about Jewish society of the time. But the Gospels have their own agenda, to portray Jewish society of the time negatively, to justify Jesus' mission. Your misunderstanding of Jewish society at the time is an example of how that propaganda is successful.

[Pat]

Given the obvious reality of a demographically unstable, economically unviable, and collapsing Germany, we now find a government department financing an anti-semitic propaganda film. Clearly, America does not have further money, men, or time to waste on Germany. No matter. Our former enemy the tiger has become a worthless pussycat, featuring comic opera armed forces dressed in the uniforms of the great Wehrmacht, minus the swastika. The survival of Germany after the War was solely due to its occupation by the armed forces of the United States, which feed the population and gave them shelter. In subsequent years, Germany was rebuild from the ashes of war through the unheard of generosity of the Marshall Plan provided by the people of the United States. Without doubt, the Germans themselves are responsible for the ongoing failure of their nation.

Patrick West, D.Sc.
Toronto

[M.S.]

@Patrick West: Our former enemy the tiger has become a worthless pussycat,
featuring comic opera armed forces dressed in the uniforms of the great Wehrmacht, minus the swastika...

That sounds like a silent reproach...but I totally agree with the critic
about the uniforms...they're cheap and shitty. It seems the pussycat need
new claws...

[IGout]

You have to view Passion of the Christ in its American context, where Jew-bashing never really caught on. IN fact, one of the most intriquing developments over here is a growing alignment between Jews and the American Right. It may be that it's dawned on the former that nobody, but nobody, will lift a finger to help Israel but those crazy Bible thumpers in the Red State hinterlands. Ironically, some of the most eloquent and sharpest anti-anti-Christians on talk radio are Jewish guys. Stay tuned.
Perhaps in this German movie we are seeing the malignant equivalent. But if even I were a spiteful and bitter German, resentful of the USA, I'd chuck the Koran-thumpers in a heartbeat. My dislike of America wouldn't go to the point of national suicide.

[M.S.]

@IGout: My dislike of America wouldn't go to the point of national suicide.

The same here...by the way, Hitler's reign was A NATIONAL AND CULTURAL SUICIDE! Today our Kids don't know much about our past before 1933... Walter von der Vogelweide, Martin Luther, Albrecht von Wallenstein -who's that???