Mel Gibson vs Oliver Stone: Anti-semitism, Left and Right
Filed under: Foreign Policy, Israel, Media Bias — Tags: Oliver stone anti semitic anti-semitic apology double standard mel gibson times london jews israel hitler holocaust — Jesusland @ 12:42
In bed with goons and clowns: Oliver Stone
Filmmaker Oliver Stone has apologized after critics slammed him for making comments that were interpreted as anti-Semitic in an interview last Sunday. While promoting his documentary "South of the Border" with The Sunday Times of London, Stone not only defended Hitler, but also downplayed the Holocaust.
"Hitler was a Frankenstein, but there was also a Dr. Frankenstein," Stone, who is half Jewish, told the paper. "German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support. Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people."
This year, while promoting his Showtime documentary "A Secret History of America," Stone said "Hitler was an easy scapegoat."
Later, he complained about the "Jewish domination of the media," saying, "there's a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f**ked up United States foreign policy for years."
On Monday afternoon, Stone issued the following statement in an attempt to appease the situation: "In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret.
"Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry. The fact that the Holocaust is still a very important, vivid and current matter today is, in fact, a great credit to the very hard work of a broad coalition of people committed to the remembrance of this atrocity — and it was an atrocity."
But Stone's apology may be too little, too late for his critics, including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and the American Jewish Committee, who said Stone's comments have outed him as an anti-Semite.
"For all of Stone's progressive pretensions, his remark is no different from one of the drunken, Jew-hating rants of his fellow Hollywood celebrity, Mel Gibson," a spokesman for the American Jewish Committee said. For his comments on Israel foreign policy, Stone earned the criticism of Israel Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein, who said his comments "could lead to a new wave of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism, and it may even cause real harm to Jewish communities and individuals."
Let us weigh the equities, shall we? Mel Gibson had to pay even though his comments were in private to a cop. Oliver Stone will get away with it even though his comments were made in PUBLIC to the Times of London. Whose comments do you think will have greater repercussions for Jewry– Gibson's comments made in an angry, booze-fueled rant to a cop, and in PRIVATE? Or the stone-cold sober, rational and official comments Oliver Stone made to a global daily newspaper. Which?
And yet Oliver Stone will get away with it– because he's on the Left. There is nothing a Leftist can say that will get him into trouble. Nothing. Because, despite their occasional "slip of the tongue", deep down inside they mean well. It was merely a poor choice of words. Or so goes the thinking. If you are on the Right, however, you will not get away with it. Your stumbling requires no context. If you are on the Right, your slip-ups are proof-positive the Right is a barely-contained menace to the planet.
Mel Gibson was ostracized for his booze-fueled anti-semitic rant to that cop because he had just committed the unforgivable crime of his Passion of the Christ. His crime was being Christian and on the Right. THAT– and not his booze-fueled anti-semitic rant– is why he didn't get away with it. Despite the ADL's anger, Oliver Stone will get away with it. When the Right says they're sorry, it has no mitigating effect. Yet, Stone's apology pretty much kills the story. It's over. Stone's career and public standing will not suffer because he is immunized by his Leftism.