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Interpretation of mob scene is just
so wrong
'I'M not antisemitic, but...''. Can you think of any phrase
that more troubles the flesh on the back of your neck?
Is there any way to start a sentence that makes your heart
sink or your hackles rise faster?
The tagline for Mel Gibson's latest movie, The Passion, might
as well be ''I'm not antisemitic, but...''.
Gibson has directed, co-written and bankrolled The Passion,
with the $25million he earned for starring in The Patriot.
His aim, he insists, was to document the last hours of Jesus
as accurately as possible and to truthfully portray the crucifixion.
All the dialogue is in Latin and Aramaic, the vernacular
of Galilee and Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. That accuracy, it
seems, includes much footage of frenzied mobs, baying for
Jesus's death.
The movie's marketing director claims: ''The story speaks
to our world today, the mob mentality, the rush to condemn.''
And the mob, of course, is Jewish. Gibson, like a TV evangelist
who selects and twists words from the scriptures out of context
to persuade viewers to connect him with their credit cards,
justifies this by quoting the Bible.
Taking a line from the gospel of St John, Gibson told one
interviewer: ''It's true that, as the Bible says, 'He came
into his own and his own received him not'. I can't hide that.''
I've got that page of the New Testament in front of me, and
there is nothing in the passage to suggest that 'his own'
means 'the Jews'. The obvious and logical inference is that
'his own' was all mankind.
It takes a certain sort of mind to see and seize on an innocuous
line as a slur on Jews. The same sort of mind, perhaps, that
would subscribe to an ultra-right splinter of Catholicism.
Gibson's precise beliefs are not known, but he is thought
to belong to a Catholic sect which does not recognise the
Pope and which cannot acknowledge the mid-Sixties' reforms
of the Second Vatican Council. One of those reforms ruled
that Jews could not be held to blame for the death of Jesus.
Is it possible that the most bankable hero in Hollywood,
a family man with seven children who has been contentedly
married for more than two decades, would set out to make a
movie that dumps the blame on Jews for a 2,000-year-old murder,
like a bloody carcass dragged onto the steps of a synagogue
in the dead of night?
The Passion isn't due for release until February next year,
but clips have been shown, early edits have been screened
to focus groups and drafts of the script have been leaked.
And all the evidence points to one chilling answer: yes, it
does appear that Gibson's movie could hack a jagged rift between
evangelical Christians and Jews.
Professor Paula Fredriksen of Boston University, who saw
a script, reports: ''It was written extremely vividly with
a lot of directorial comments. This is one: 'The crowd is
frenzied . . . it screams for his death'. That's a Jewish
crowd and that's not in the gospels. Descriptions like that
are in the script throughout.''
New York Assemblyman Dov Hikins told CNN: ''The brief clip
that I saw of the film, of a mob of Jews yelling for the crucifixion
of Jesus, was enough to scare the daylights out of me.
''This film is dangerous for Jews all over the world. This
film can potentially lead to violence directed against the
Jewish community. This film will result in antisemitism, bigotry.
It really takes us back to the Dark Ages, plain and simple.''
The Anti-Defamation League echoes his warning: ''The Passion
will fuel the hatred, bigotry and antisemitism that many responsible
churches have worked hard to repudiate.''
I share these concerns - though not because I think one movie
can plunge us back into the Dark Ages. Let's face it, if cinema
had the power to destroy civilisations, then every movie Madonna
has made would set the clock back by 500 years.
My fear is that right-wing Christians in the US, who have
been among Israel's staunchest supporters, will point to The
Passion as an excuse to drop their backing for everything
Israel represents.
Protesters last week staged a small demonstration against
Gibson and his film outside the Manhattan HQ of News Corporation,
which owns the studio making The Passion.
The backlash from hard-right Christians was swift. The Rev
Ted Haggard, leader of the National Association of Evangelicals,
said protests ''may come across to some average people as
them being against a movie about Jesus. I'm surprised some
Jewish leaders would protest [at] a movie portraying the final
hours of Christ's life.
''There is a great deal of pressure on Israel right now,
and Christians seem to be a major source of support for Israel.
For Jewish leaders to risk alienating two billion Christians
over a movie seems shortsighted.''
In other words, ''You Jews can shut up. We back your Israeli
state, and there's a thousand times more of us than there
is of you. We can switch off your life support any time we
like. Can it, if you know what's good for you''.
And now I think of it, there is one phrase more frightening
than ''I'm not antisemitic, but...'' It's this: ''I'm not
anti-Israeli, but...''
Email
him at uri@urigeller.com
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