Davids Medienkritik

"Paradise Now": The Human Face of Terrorists

A while ago we commented on the anti-Semitic movie "Paradise Now", which is co-financed by German authorities. Also, we mentioned that the script of "Paradise now" is in the race for a German award.

I just came across an interview of an Austrian newspaper (Wiener Zeitung) with the movie's film director, Hany Abu-Assad. He is clearly an apologist of suicide bombers, despite his "I am against suicide attacks" rhethoric. I guess the award for "Paradise Now" is a given...

„Wiener Zeitung“: What was your opinion of suicide attackers before and after the film?

Hany Abu-Assad: Before I thought that assassins were uneducated religious fanatics who’d been brainwashed. While researching for the film though, I’ve discovered a human face bit by bit. Behind every assassin is an individual story – here a Palestinian woman whose husband was killed by the Israelis, there a Palestinian whose house was destroyed by the Israeli army.

What unites the assassins is their resistance to the occupation and extreme hopelessness. They have the feeling that no matter what they do, Israel gets the upper hand. Even though I disagree with the suicide attacks, I don’t condemn them. For me suicide attacks are a human reaction to an extreme situation. Once again: I am personally against the killing – whether for reasons of resistance or military strikes. (...)

„Wiener Zeitung“: Do you suppose that the Palestinians’ situation would have been better if there had been no suicide attacks in Israel.   

Hany Abu-Assad: No. . . (corrects himself) . .  I’m not sure. Anyway it’s clear that suicide attacks are a reaction. Israel says that it is the victim and accuses the Palestinians of being terrorists. That drives the Palestinians crazy. If they’d just recognize us as equal citizens, the conflict would resolve itself. (emphasis added)

Last time in history the Jews accepted their killers as "equals", reality didn't have a happy ending for them...

(Translation of quote by Richard Bartholomew.)

Update: One of the main reasons why we run this blog is the phantastic input by our readers. Like the comment below by "The Editrix" where parallels between Mr. Abu-Assad's enlightening remarks and this wonderful satire in "The Onion" are shown. Enjoy!

Crazed Palestinian Gunman Angered By Stereotypes

HEBRON, WEST BANK—In an emotionally charged press conference Monday, crazed Palestinian gunman Faisal al Hamad expressed frustration over the stereotyping of his people.

"As a crazed Palestinian gunman, I feel hurt by the negative portrayal of my people in the media," said al Hamad, 31, a Hebron-area terrorist maniac. "None of us should have to live with stereotyping and ignorance."

He then began screaming and firing into a busload of Israeli schoolchildren.

"It hurts that in this supposedly enlightened day and age, people still make assumptions about other people," al Hamad said. "We should not rely on simple generalizations. Each crazed Palestinian gunman is an individual." (...)

Al Hamad said that he himself has often been unfairly stereotyped. "Any time I enter a crowded temple with fully loaded AK-47s in both hands, people just assume I'm going to open fire," he said. "That really hurts."

"Yes, I sometimes do gun people down in the name of the One True God," he noted. "But there is so much more to me." (...)

According to al Hamad, stereotypes against crazed Palestinian gunmen don't work because they don't take into account the vast variety of proud histories and diverse cultures among them.

"There are so many different kinds of crazed Palestinian gunmen. Each of us has our own unique reasons and motivations for our bus bombings and suicide missions," he said. "No two fundamentalist agendas are alike."

Al Hamad also stressed the importance of understanding and celebrating the cultural differences between crazed Palestinian gunmen and non-crazed, non-Palestinian non-gunmen.

"All the different peoples of the world have something special to offer each other," he said. "Our diversity is our greatest strength. Let's not make a weakness out of that strength."

To emphasize his point, al Hamad fired into a crowd, killing nine.

"I'm proud to be a crazed Palestinian gunman, obviously," he said in between shouts of anti-imperialist slogans. "But I'm an individual first. I'm me. Die, Yankee infidel pig swine!"

Faisal al Hamad, seen here shrieking anti-U.S.
slogans, says that "not every crazed Palestinian
gunman is exactly alike."

Hey Jews, don't you see? All you have to do is to recognize the terrorists as "equal citizens".

Update on "Paradise Now"

Remember our posting on "Paradise now", an anti-Semitic movie co-financed by German authorities?

Well, we have news for you...

The screenwriters of "Paradise now" have been nominated for "EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER 2005" at the European Film Awards 2005. 

The European Film Awards - to be celebrated in Berlin on Dec. 3, 2005 - are meant to be the European response to the Oscar. The awards' organizer is the European Film Academy - whose president is (hold your breath) Wim Wenders.

And here's what we wrote at an earlier occasion about Wim Wenders:

But I daresay that I really love Wim Winder’s threat not to travel to the USA in the event of a Bush reelection. I’m sure that that, in view of the director’s growing reputation for deadly boring movies, will – all across the country – have the impact of a multi-megaton bomb.

Well, we all know the rest of the story: even though Bush won the election, Wenders unfortunately decided not to leave the U.S.: 

Contrary to his pre-election promise to leave the U.S. in case of a Bush election win, German film director Wim Wenders now says he WILL NOT LEAVE THE U.S.!!

Wenders, who recently confessed to suffer from "brain softening" (a disease quite common among German left-wing intellectuals), wants to stay in the U.S. and "fight for a liberal country".

I guess, with Wim Wenders at the helm of the European Film Academy, "Paradise Now" has an excellent chance to win the award. After all, Wim has a hand for amazingly awful movies...   

"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

"No" to "Paradise Now"

Last week the movie "Paradise Now" started in German cinemas. This critique in Germany's daily WELT (translation: Richard Bartholomew) pretty much sums up my feelings. I will post more on the subject next week.

A Jaundiced Look at a Sympathetic Figure
Suicide bombers are really good people: Alan Posener: The disappointing film "Paradise Now"

Said is a suicide bomber in Nablus.  Long trained for this job, he and his friend Khaled don't hesitate a moment when their organization's leader announces they've drawn the winning straw and will be allowed to stage a double mass murder the next day in Tel Aviv. (...)

The next day the friends start out and although Khled gets cold feet at the last moment, Said goes through with it and blows himself up with a bus load of jews.  Mission accomplished.

So much for the plot of the German-Dutch-French co-produciton "Paradise Now". (...)

Hany Abu-Assads film is the first fruit of the "World Cinema Fund", the mutual film sponsorship of the Berlinale and Federal Cultural Foundation.  The evangelical film jury names "Paradise Now" as the film of the month because it invites the viewer to "think about the assasin's motives".  Amnesty International distinguishes it with its peace prize because it's neither "lecturing nor moralizing". That's true: Noone in the film says that it might morally wrong (and not just politically conterproductive as Suha claims), to mass murder the innocent.

Most German critics praise the "sophisticated" presentation.  Well "Paradise Now" is certainly "sophisticated" compared to the hate soaked anti-semitic propaganda films that play every evening on TVs in every arabic country.  Sure it's "sophisticated" compared to the videos that Hamas, Hisbollah and Co. produce. (...)

As Said begs his commander for a second chance, he finds the words that Europeans miss so painfully in the communiques of the terrorists.  Words that speak to the heart - just like Saids' gesture speaks to the heart not to board a bus carrying a sweet israeli child.  That's how they are, these murderers: actually good people.

But the film doesn't show Saids'deed: Women without abdomens, men without heads, children without arms and legs, blood and guts in seats, burned pieces of flesh all over the place.  Nothing about that: After panning past Saids' eyes the screen becomes bright and white and pure.

At the 55th international film festival in Berlin 2005 "Paradise Now" won the Publikumspreis ("audience award") and the Blue Angle for the best European film.

It makes you want to scream.