Why Anti-Semitism?

[k5125]

humantag said:

'Do The Right Thing' and 'Jungle Fever'. The third I don't recall the title.

In "Do The Right Thing", there's a scene in which Spike Lee's character tells Italian-American actor John Turturro that his (Turturro's) hair is 'kinkier than mine (Lee's)", and then says "you know what they say about those dark Italians" amongother things. There is more dialog that I can't recall - the overall message is clear however: "Why y'all Italians be hating on blacks? You black too!"

In 'Jungle Fever', there are a couple of scenes in which it is suggested that Italians are substantially mixed with blacks.

I haven't seen all his movies - I wouldn't be surprised if there are many more such comments in his films.

heh thats pretty funny. A lot of irony too since turturro has been cast as an Ashkenazi jew. I wonder what lee thinks about the jew fro.

[k5125]

Igu said:

Euhh, who is MLK?

Martin Luther King

[humantag]

k5125 said:

heh thats pretty funny. A lot of irony too since turturro has been cast as an Ashkenazi jew. I wonder what lee thinks about the jew fro.

Interestingly enough, Turturro plays a Jew in another Lee film ('Mo Betta Blues'). I recall the film being criticised at the time of its release for the way the Jewish characters are depicted.

[k5125]

humantag said:

Interestingly enough, Turturro plays a Jew in another Lee film ('Mo Betta Blues'). I recall the film being criticised at the time of its release for the way the Jewish characters are depicted.

lol Oh yeah I saw that movie. It made Jews look really cheap and greedy. I could laugh it off, but the thing that bothered me is how if Jews made a film depicting blacks in a stereotype there would be hell to pay.

[k5125]

Lee as a person gets on my nerves but I do think he is talented in what he does. He gives his films a certain edge.

Malcom X was simply brilliant. Clockers was good for its genre.

I never saw do the right thing but I plan too.

[humantag]

k5125 said:

Lee as a person gets on my nerves but I do think he is talented in what he does. He gives his films a certain edge.

Malcom X was simply brilliant. Clockers was good for its genre.

I never saw do the right thing but I plan too.

I think Clockers was a project that was started by some other big name director (Scorcese maybe?) who aborted it for some reason, and Lee somehow ended up at the helm.

[k5125]

Scorcese assisted Lee in Clockers I believe.

It had a great cast Mekhi Pfeiffer, Harvey Keitel, Delroy Lindo, John Turturro.

The script was good as well, but the best part of the movie I thought was the soundtrack and surrealistic elements incorporated into the picture.

[Curious6]

I have refrained from posting anything up to now in this thread, but your ignorance is annoying.

humantag said:

Look - let's suppose for the sake of argument that ALL Jews looked like Yasser Arafat and carried genes exclusively of a character associated with Middle Eastern types. This wouldn't make their claims to Israel any more legitimate.

What a relief we don't look like him! No disrespect, but he's not the epitome of attractiveness! I agree that appearance shouldn't play a role in the claims to the land, but here is the irony of your post: Arafat is half Egyptian born in Cairo. Perhaps he has even more non-Palestinian ancestry. Actually, now that we are at it, many Palestinians are not even native to the land (western Palestine) but are rather immigrants from surrounding regions that flocked to the area recently or descendants of the immigrants that reached the region in succeeding waves over the 20th century (especially in the first half).

Moreover, the native Palestinians have also had substantial admixture from Arab invaders during the course of the past millennium. This raises the following question: Do you believe that Palestinians have a more rightful claim to the land because their admixture is from other Arab countries rather than from European countries as the Ashkenazi?

humantag said:

Sure, there has probably been some Jewish presence in 'Israel' since antiquity. There has been, after all, some Jewish presence in such places as Afghanistan and Yemen for many centuries, and these places have none of the religious significance for Jews of Jerusalem. Was this presence substantial enough to rationalise giving them Palestine, or saying the land is as Jewish as it is Arab? Hell no - c'est absurd.

If you can't understand the historical reasons for which the country is claimed then you haven't understood the core of the conflict. The Jewish ancient homeland is Israel and granted the opportunity to restablish their homeland somewhere no other area seemed as obvious as this one. By the way, some Jewish presence was much larger than you think it is. I can't exactly remember the statistics, but it was definitely a substantial population. You can't compare the Jewish presence in Afghanistan or Yemen to that in Palestine, as the presence in those two Arab countries was a result of the Diaspora while the presence in Palestine is natural, as it has always been the Jewish homeland. It's like comparing Italian presence in Rome to Italian presence in Greece or in Turkey.

humantag said:

If it were up to me at the time ('48), I think a more reasonable and just suggestion would be to perhaps make part of Jerusalem and/or perhaps some other token city into something on the order of a 'Jewish Vatican' - a symbolic homeland that Jews could make a pilgrimage to and in which a few million might live, without displacing or marginalizing the indigenous Arab population. Even this would be asking A LOT of the indigenous Arab population.

LOL, this one is funny. In your hypothetical scenario, you ask only a few million might live there. Fact: there are about 5 million Jews in Israel which amounts to your 'few million'. Keep in mind that this figure is a result of new births and immigration from '48 onward. In 1948, the Jewish population didn't even reach 1,000,000! This was hardly a 'displacement'.

[humantag]

Curious 6-

You are a simple man*, I perceive.

I would regard a population of 20,000 that uprooted one indigenous inhabitants unjust, while a city of 20 million that was built over a formerly uninhabitated area would be difficult to characterize as an 'occupation'. The mere numbers of persons is not necessarily very meaningful. Capiche?

You can disagree with me if you want - I could care less. I've done all the arguing I am going to do on this thread - my postion is clear, make of it what you will.


[/li][li]

[Post script (added 6-10-05): Just checked out Curious 6's profile and now understand that HE is in fact a male (not sure if this option had always been available). Isn't it interesting how you can so often infer one's sex just from text?... ]

[Curious6]

humantag said:

Curious 6-

You are a simple man*, I perceive.

Excellent. This comes from a (simple?) man whose only response to my post is to call me a 'simple man', not even trying to refute my post in any way, and who repeatedly distorts facts.

humantag said:

I would regard a population of 20,000 that uprooted one indigenous inhabitants unjust, while a city of 20 million that was built over a formerly uninhabitated area would be difficult to characterize as an 'occupation'. The mere numbers of persons is not necessarily very meaningful. Capiche?

20,000? What are you saying dude, read the figures! The Jewish population was considerably larger at the turn of the 19th century and nobody was uprooted in any way! Land was purchased legally and so was the immigration that followed.

humantag said:

You can disagree with me if you want - I could care less. I've done all the arguing I am going to do on this thread - my postion is clear, make of it what you will.?

Your position is very clear: You have no idea what you are talking about.