Wanted: Right-wing artists
Orlev, Eldad and those who share their views can claim that artistic freedom of expression is always exploited in the service of the same ideological camp. There is something to that. One can understand why this trend frustrates them: It contradicts their political interest and is seen by them as assisting enemy propaganda.
By Ehud Asheri"This is further proof of the fact that the minister of education is trying to impose Peace Now's agenda on the school system. The prime minister must prevent the domination of the school system by the extreme left. Parents should supervise their children's education, because it is impossible to trust the political minister of education."
- MK Zevulun Orlev in response to the decision to introduce two plays that deal with the injustices of the occupation - "Project Jabalya" and "Winter in Qalandiyah"- into the school system's "culture basket"
Good for National Religious Party Chair Zevulun Orlev! In a brilliant intelligence coup, he managed to find two "left-wing" plays out of about 1,000 included in the schools' culture basket, and he immediately warned the nation that the souls of Israeli students were being poisoned. It is a good thing that someone is on guard. Nevertheless, Orlev's reaction provokes several questions. First, it is doubtful whether he saw the two plays, which are based on the personal experiences of Eldad Galor (in Jabalya) and Lia Nirgad (at the Qalandiyah checkpoint) before describing them as "extreme left." Second, why did he wake up only now? The plays have been performed for over a year, and even the decision to include them in the culture basket was made several weeks ago. Third, what does he want from the education minister? The decision was made by an independent professional committee of 100 artists and academicians; it is doubtful whether the minister was even aware of it.
One could of course dismiss Orlev's words as another transparent attempt by a politician to make headlines and political capital at the expense of an ideological rival. But the NRP chair represents a broader cultural phenomenon that has been picking up speed lately. He is not alone in the campaign against artists who want to give artistic expression, mainly in the theater and cinema, to the experience of the Israeli occupation as they know it. His declaration is another step in a renewed campaign against the freedom of expression of artists whose work questions the justice of Israeli policy in the territories.
On Tuesday, a District Court began hearing a libel suit by five reserve soldiers against Mohammed Bakri, the director of the film "Jenin, Jenin," who documented conversations with residents of the Jenin refugee camp several days after Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002. The sequence of events in this case is a good illustration of the extent of the battle against works that are incompatible with the prevailing concept of Israeli patriotism.
At first the film was rejected by the Censorship Board for Films and Plays. After a two-year public battle, the High Court of Justice accepted Bakri's petition and allowed the film to be screened commercially ("the board's decision goes too far in undermining freedom of expression ... The council is not authorized to restrict political or ideological statements even if the government or most of the public disagrees with them"). This time, MK Aryeh Eldad was the first to jump in: "The High Court justices are performing a wonderful service for the enemy behind the foolish claim of freedom of expression."
Meanwhile, the five reservists filed a libel suit against Bakri ("We set out to defend the State of Israel in a tough battle that took place in Jenin. When we returned home, we saw the film, which presents us as war criminals," said Yonatan Van Kaspel, one of the plaintiffs). Four and a half years of mediation did not convince the plaintiffs to withdraw their suit. They continue to treat the film as a journalistic document that presumes to reflect the factual situation, instead of seeing it as a subjective work of art that documents the Palestinians' narrative and mood.
A similar fate greeted the play "Hebron," a recently staged co-production of the Habima and Cameri theaters. The play deals with the human dimension of the bloody conflict between Jews and Arabs in the City of the Patriarchs. But for some reason, from the first moment, it was labeled anti-Israeli. Matot Arim, a right-wing organization that supports Jewish settlement in Hebron, quickly organized a series of demonstrations with the slogan "Israeli theater in the service of Hamas," and there was quite an uproar.
If we add in the Yehoshua Rabinowitz Foundation's withdrawal of support for the cinema project "Jaffa" due to the anti-Zionist reputation of the designated director, Eyal Sivan, we get a disturbing picture: Israeli society is showing symptoms of going back 37 years, to the dark days of "The Queen of the Bathtub." The censor's initial decision to reject Hanoch Levin's text (when the board was asked to explain its decision, it backtracked on its rejection) and the tumultuous demonstrations against the play have been seen all these years as a childhood disease of a society suffering from a temporary nationalist virus. But it turns out that the virus was only dormant, and has now reawakened and returned to threaten the emotional health of Israeli democracy.
Orlev, Eldad and those who share their views can claim that artistic freedom of expression is always exploited in the service of the same ideological camp. There is something to that. One can understand why this trend frustrates them: It contradicts their political interest and is seen by them as assisting enemy propaganda. They are incapable of seeing it for what it really is - proof of society's strength and its ability to include skeptical voices. But instead of encouraging creativity in their own camp and joining the marketplace of artistic ideas, they are embarking on a fight to the finish against other artists. If they cannot beat the "leftists," they can at least make their lives miserable.
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To Danny, or Claudia - can you give a reference or a link to the study you are discussing, regarding the relative cognitive abilities of left- vs right- wingers?
Hey... You guys are nuts. You are in a war for your very survival, and yet allow propaganda from your enemies to be shown to the masses. IF, you were not at war for your survival, then free speech is important. But, while you are hanging on by your fingernails while trying to survive, only an Elitst Gov would allow this absurdity to take place while intent upon your suicide. If this is art then you are crazy! When the USA et.al. declared was on Germany and Japan, this kind of nonsense ("Art") would get you thrown in prison or shot for treason. Israel, you can handle the terrorists. But, the left wing nuts with their attempt at abfuscations, are your biggest problem. You are being destroyed from within by this left-wing regurgitation and, do not even realize it. Your left wing Gov institutions do not care about the masses... only their photo Ops and pocketbooks. Israel, you are in deep, deep sh_t. Yes, you beieved in your leaders before and they led you to the ovens. So... trying again?
Left-wing artists contribute to the movtivation of terrorists to continue murdering Jews in Israel. Showing their viewpoint as legitimate strengthens the terrorists belief system
What that study really indicated was that left wing people can not accept principled theory, they are most likely to be swayed by what ever ideas come next. Had nothing to do with ability. Has everything to do with wishy, washy and susceptibility to irrational thought.
Surely one purpose of education is to develop critical and questioning minds. Teenagers should be exposed to sources from across the political spectrum and be encouraged to analyse and debate them. Controversy is nothing to be afraid of. This is how we create thinking citizens. It is foolish to believe that anybody will be irrevocably brainwashed by seeing a couple of leftwing plays or reading a few rightwing authors.
Esther the reactionary - "right wing artists" we have to pick up the mess the left leave in their wake. Am I to understand that you enjoyed the film "Jenin Jenin"??
Esther, I loved your use of the word "reactionery". It has such a strong communist smell, I, being from the USSR,remember how the Party used to use the words " reactionery" and "progressive". You are no doubt "progressive"? While settlers are "reactionery." Yuli Tamir is progressive no doubt. Netanyahu is "reactionery", right? Right-wing politics are " reactionery", while left-wing lunacies are " progressive". Finally don't bother about so-called Israeli art, do you want to say there's a real literature, theatre, or cinema in Israel. Amos Oz is absolutely boring ( though " progressive" no doubt), and other names? No idea... Let students read more Shakespeare or Leo Tolstoy, than half-baked, shtetl-like local authors.
Including the bombing of a hospital that was never touched!!
Poor Dana has lost connection with reality. She calls the "natives" Arabs!!! LOL Dana, Arabs are native to Saudi Arabia, my dear. The people of Israel whether living in Exile in New Jersey, or Sunnyvale, CA or in Jerusalem or the ones that never left Israel are NATIVE to the land of Israel, including Judea and Summaria which were liberated after 19 years of CRUEL occupation. While Jordan Occupied part of Judea and Summaria until 1967, they destroyed tens of synagogues and Jewish holy places. They also desecrated Jewish cemeteries and used tombstones as urinals and to pave roads with. Let's talk about TRUTH and the REALITY of continual Arab occupation of Israel including Judea and Summaria.
Bakri's film "Jenin, Jenin" is widely known to contain explicit lies and staged episodes under the nameof "documentary film". The High Court accepted Bakri's petition not because it accepted that the episodes bad not been staged, but for the reason of "freedom of expression" (which does not seem to preven people suiting Bakri with a libel suit). Therefore, Mr. Ehud Asheri is saying DELIBERATE LIES about the case. Needless to add that the question of including a play into school "culture basket" has noting to do with freedom of speech or freedom of art. And, it is absolutely clear that the parent have a natural right to supervise what their children are taught to under the guise of "culture". Vladimir
enlighten me what has been "purchased" in this market place for the last 50years, except pie in the sky absurd schemes and dreams to give away our Land.
Intimidation has always been a prominent weapon of the far right and the settlers. Orlev's behaviour is typical of such reactionaries, and is contaminating other segments of the public. It is fast becoming an urgent matter to counteract such attacks. Right-wing artists cannot thrive in such an atmosphere.
Ehud Asheri, you are a liberal yet do not tolerate a conservative point of view? Is egoism so supreme that respecting and loving your neighbor is a thing of the past? How would you like to have served your country almost unto the point of death and then be told that what you did was a waste of time, be belittled, and treated as some moron because you did what was asked of you? Freedom of speech is not a license to belittle the courageous acts of men protecting our lives. Freedom of speech is not a license to ridicule, twist the truth to fit your agenda, or insult others no mater what their persuasion is. Your freedom of speech, in attacking the moral fabric of our nation, is self destruction.
Art needs to be at least partially truthful but when it is completely imaginary with the purpose of changing political outcomes, it is not even subjective, it is garbage!
repression of what is really happening is futile, there is no backlash to 1948 but a continious supression of expresion of the truth we live in here,an attempt to mold and restrict reality to conform to what we wish it to be-the begining of redemption-redemption is in gods hands amy attempt to push it is disaster, the game of right and left- illusion- promoted by forces dedicated to the destrution of the jewish people;ive never meet an isreali who trancended israeliness;there are no religious jews or non-religious ones just jews-illusion to divide in order to rule the shoa was a kind of internal jewish conflict outer forces gladly took sides in; israeli truth manipulation is killing this people because of the need to lie to ones self-selfdegragation-super expression of self as an israeli is a shuting down of ones self as a human being jew i pray to god that this eternal people escape this most deadly trap that of accepting the false idenity of isreali man much more than that stop
Apropos the recent study that concluded that left-wing people are better at congnitive abilities than their right-wing counterparts (or in plain english, just plain smarter), it is no surprise that Orlev, Eldad and the rest of them would try to silence the left in any way they can. As the title of the article says: If you can't beat them, try to give them hell.
Honest people call this "lies."
There are three facts that make Zvulun Or-Lev right in both political and common sense terms: a) There had never been a case when a person was fired from his/her job for being leftists. There were hundreds of such cases during the dark times of Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak. b) There had never been a case when leftist (Machsom Watch, Shalom Achvav and the rest) assisting terrorists were brought to trial. There had never been a case when the left-wing inciters were brought to trial for calling to destroy the state of Israel ( including Danny Rubinstein of Haaretz). There were hundreds of cases when people were prosecuted for saying the truth about Arabs, for instance, the fact less than 5% of Arabs pay city tax. c) There is a feverish witch-hunt to uncover a ?Jewish terrorist organization?. The Jewish department of Shabak used torture and literary broke bones to the ?suspects?. Who promotes leftists? Few oligarchic families that run the whole country.
Dana once again we have been subjected to one of your ill-informed knee jerk anti-Israel reactions. This is not simply an issue of Jenin, Jenin which was actaully ponography and as you wrote, "the documentary "Jenin Jenin" while not pretending to be objective". Beautiful, a perfect fit for your mind set. Jenin X2 has been debunked in many foreign documentaries that do attempt to be objective. But who needs facts when you got rhetoric? As for the gov't and artists, this country which had only one television channel and limited to one major film production house, when under the socialists, still suffers from the "committee syndrome", when it comes to the arts. Channel one, which cannot fire any of the old guard, still suffers from it's politics, this also hampers those gov't supported arts committees, which push conceptual and abstract art, where the big money plays. Let artists raise their own money, make their plays and take them to the market place.
Anti israeli movie? Anti israeli artists? The israeli goverment and its policies is open to debate. If you don't agree with them its not only permitted but a moral duty to proclaim it and explain why. This is part of patriotism. Confusing between Israel and its goverment id fallatious and dishonest. To call yourself "Jewish state" is just plain stupid.
When you lower your defenses the "poor jihadist" bring in belt bombs to make a mockery of this type of mentality. They propagate themselves to be martyrs,and victims while the cameras roll. " All they are saying is give piece a chance"
The documentary 'jenin, jenin', while not pretending to be an objective description of the events that took place during the assault on the refugees by occupation army, is nonetheless a good depiction of the great harm inflicted on human beings for the sole reason that they were Arabs who resisted subjugation. In many ways, while not a massacre in the conventional sense, in either magnitude or intent, the aftermath of the documentary - recapturing high-handed inhumane action by occupation troops - IS an attempt to massacre the truth. As are ill-begotten pronouncements of MK Orlev and ilk - all part of the attempt to hide the ugly truth of the occupation. Because ugly it is and war crimes are committed in its enforcement and perpetuation daily. Though the parallels to be drawn are closer to the actions of the Russians in Chechnia and do not reach the level of Turkish genocide against Armenians, Israeli kids have the right to know what they'll be asked to do to subjugate the natives.
Ehud - it is not an issue of culture of free speech. Taxpayers do not have to help anti-Israel movie makers tear the country apart on film. if they want to make the films - go ahead, it is a free country. But to put this garbage on lists of acceptable movies for our students? absurd! This stuff is pure propagand. And you, dear Ehud, are what Lenin called "a useful idiot" - as you try so hard to help our enemies.