"Operation Filmmaker" Gets Under Your Skin

So I wake up this morning thinking about the documentary I saw the night before on PBS' Independent Lens - always a good sign when you're exposed to art of any kind.
"Operation Filmmaker" is the troubling portrait of a young Iraqi film student, Muthana Mohmed, who is invited to participate on the production of a Hollywood movie, but quickly finds himself in over his head and at odds with his Western hosts who expect him to be grateful and humbled for the opportunity they've afforded him - working as a production assistant and serving crunchy snacks to over-pampered Hollywood film producers.
Instead, Mohmed grows increasingly resentful of the fruit that's been dangled in front of him but seemingly held just out of his reach - a fascinating parallel to the American / Iraqi - Israili / Palestinian relationship playing out on the world stage as I type.

Mohmed can't go back to Iraq because he'd most likely be killed for working with the Americans, and particularly for aspiring to work for an Israeli-owned film company. Desperate to extend his opportunity, he repeatedly asks his hosts for money - and even attempts to extory money from them, increasing their resentment. He eventually lands a year's tuition at The London Film Academy from The Rock who he meets working on the set of Doom.

My first thoughts this morning were, either that's the most brilliant piece of propaganda I've ever seen, or the most poorly conceived gesture of good will gone bad. In either case, it's a fascinating film, but one that leaves this viewer suspicious of everbody's motives.

Faux News Ministry Of Information Reliable Source Of Propaganda For Israeli Lobby

So I'm laying there in bed (I'm on vacation), flipping through the channels when I land on ch 66, Fox News - or as I like to call it, The Faux News Ministry Of Information. Unfortunately, it's the only news network Comcast allows basic cable subscribers (mostly old people and poor people) to watch, seeing how they're so reliably susceptible to right-wing propaganda.

Anyway, it's a commercial break and there's some charity begging for dollars for Israel to build bomb shelters for the Israelis. No, seriously. You see, Hamas has been lobbing Katusha rockets over the border again and, this time, they actually managed to kill about four people in southern Israel which is not cool. The voiceover in the commercial begs, "Now is the time to stand beside Israel!" They're begging Americans to send money to Israel.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Not only does Israel receive BILLIONS of dollars (estimated at $108 Billion annually) from the U.S. in foreign aid, more than ANY OTHER country in the world (approximately 1/3 of our total foreign aid budget), but they also happen to be bombing the shit out of that hellhole known as the Gaza strip with OUR F16 fighter jets. Over the last week Israel has managed to kill 100 times as many Palestinians as Hamas has managed to kill Israelis. Doesn't sound like they need any more help from us. And yet, they still need our sympathy - for political reasons.

What's sad is probably half of the U.S. - the half that voted for Bush & McCain, I'd bet - probably believe that Israel needs U.S. money to build bomb shelters to protect them from Hamas. Yup, grandma's cutting the check right now for those poor, poor people who suffered so terribly at the hands of Hitler during the war.

Well, I'm here to tell ya grandma - over the last sixty years the oppressed have become the oppressors and they've got a marketing budget that would make Disney blush (anyone remember the tens of millions of dvds the Israeli lobby sent out through the mail just before the 2008 U.S. presidential election?). And as long as they have such a reliable vein into the heart of the American electorate (i.e. Fox News), you can bet they'll continue to inject it with propaganda.

So Israel, when you have all the power, all the money and all the weapons, with apparently no problem in using them (e.g. Lebanon last year), it's pretty hard to take you seriously as the victim. I think that politcal well has finally run dry.

Oh yeah, and they don't want anybody else helping the Palestinians either. Israeli patrol boats rammed a U.S. relief yacht full of medical supplies, a U.S. Senator & journalists from CNN and Al Jazeera. Typical Israeli belligerance.

Check out the video from CNN.



...and another about the conflict in general.