You OK? Welcome, everybody. Good afternoon. Speakers today,
the authors of the book Hollywood and Israeli History Tony Show and Hear a Goldberg
Tony Show is professor of contemporary history at the University of Hertfordshire,
and Guiora is also a historian, and he chairs the Department of Multidisciplinary Studies at the King Eric Kinneret Collegiate College.
I'm sorry on the Sea of Galilee.
I won't go into the details of their CVS just in order for them to allow them to jump straight into this presentation.
Thank you so much for coming in to present your work.
We will have a presentation followed by questions and answers, so I'm looking forward to this discussion.
Thank you. I think you're now going to act as a sort of wrestling tag team today.
I'm going to say a little bit first and then I'll speak for perhaps 15 20 minutes and then I will come in in.
In the second half of that, we expect to speak for 45 minutes.
No, no more than that. You'll have lots of images to look at.
And given that this is about image than you need films like Yaakov Bastos, have you got films to show today?
And we we thought about whether we should, but we thought we didn't really have the time to apologies.
There would be any film clips today, but there will be images to make up for it.
So this is a book about what we see as the special relationship that has developed over many decades between Hollywood and the State of Israel.
The book on our talk today will look at the long history of that relationship.
We'll go back to the pre-state days, but by and large focus on the period from 1948 to the present day where historians.
We've done a ton of work in various archives in Hollywood and the United States to try and get this story from both sides.
We've also had some European and Arab based sources as well.
We're looking at the relationship between Hollywood and Israel onscreen,
which is what you might expect, i.e., what films is Hollywood made about Israel?
Why is it made those films? Why is it not made other films and TV shows, but predominantly films,
but as interested in what the relationship between Hollywood Israel is off screen?
This is where hopefully our archival digging bears fruit, so we're interested in why have certain filmmakers, certain film stars supported Israel?
How have they supported Israel? Have they just funded helped raise funds for Israel?
No, it's a lot more interesting about how they lobbied. Have they been political activists for Israel?
So we start, for instance, with this image here of Frank Sinatra.
This is an image of him visiting Israel and opening a youth centre in his name in Nazareth in 1962.
Why would Frank Sinatra not a Jew? Why would he be interested in doing that?
And we're going to explore that a little bit today. Why do we see this as important?
It's obviously interesting.
You might arguably be entertaining because it's about Hollywood, but we see this as important because we're trying to look at,
should we say, the cultural side of the relationship between the United States and Israel.
We're looking at the soft side of that alliance that is developed over decades.
And so that's where I think our contribution is and we're essentially going to be arguing that we see Hollywood as a
really important gluing agent in that relationship between the United States and Israel over the past 60 70 years.
So the structure of the talk? Oh, now stop talking handover to Europe.
We're going to take you by and large through a chronological narrative of the relationship between Hollywood and Israel and trying to, I don't know.
Perhaps a number of you will be as interested in what the relationship is today and compared with,
let's say, what it was in the 1960s, so we can come through to the present day glory.
Well, by and large, take the the first number of decades and I'll finish off with the the latter.
All right. OK, thanks, Tony. So good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for coming.
A book takes a chronological approach, but also a thematic one because themes develop over time trends in Hollywood or subjects
which in which the Zionist movement first and then Israel is involved are involved with.
So our story begins in the 1970s and it begins in the 1970s.
And this is in the book too, because we look at this period as the height of the relationship.
And in that at that time in the 1970s, you had Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin coming over to Hollywood.
In 1976, he was not the first Israeli prime minister who came to Hollywood.
In fact, all had and since did bar one. And there's a very big party there for him.
I would say 90 percent of the. World Entertainment Capital Industry is there to greet him.
Studio heads, stars, we see in this particular picture that they're all singing reach and reach out and touch with them.
A big, big party for visiting prime minister is not something that usually happens in Hollywood.
Two years later, in 1978, it's Israel's 30th birthday and there's again a big celebration in Hollywood,
which is not just in the Hollywood hall and reported in the press.
It's actually broadcast live on US national network television to an audience numbering tens of millions, and they're here again.
All the top stars and producers will, of course, for the audience, the wider audience, it's the stars Kirk Douglas, Paul Newman.
I won't. We won't even bother with a whole list because it's everybody who counts at the
time all there to congratulate Israel and say Happy birthday to the state.
Barbra Streisand is the keynote of this of this event.
She closes it with an interview, a live interview today.
Of course, every kid can do it on WhatsApp.
But in 1978, it was a big thing with a retired Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir and Golda Meir, who was just a little later.
She came to she was an immigrant from the Zionist immigrant from the United States.
Golda Meir was the subject of one Hollywood film with Ingrid Bergman in the 1980s and currently another Hollywood film and perhaps a Hollywood series.
There's talk also about a Hollywood series. What is this fascination and interest in Golda Meir in this case?
But in Israel as a whole?
So Barbra Streisand is interviewing her live and then then finishes the whole event with the singing the Israeli national anthem Hatikva,
and all this again on American television. The 1970s is the height of the relationship.
We're going to reach 50 years, half a century earlier and then conclude half a century later, around the time that we are now 20 20.
If we go back to pre-state the pre-state period, which is the subject of the chapter in our book,
I would say there are three things that the can be and should be emphasised.
First of all, there is a story, a well known story,
the most well-known book Neal Gobblers from something like 30 years ago about Hollywood's Hollywood's
relationship with American Jewish community and the importance of the Jews in creating Hollywood.
But the idea there is that in order for the Jews to succeed as big producers in Hollywood, nothing of their Jewish identity was or could be on film.
So somebody who becomes a very big supporter of Israel, Daniel Kaminsky, arrives in Hollywood.
He has to change his name to Danny. Kaye has to die there. He didn't agree to a nose job.
And this idea that Hollywood or the bosses of Hollywood stay away from Jewish identity is something that we slightly challenge in that chapter.
Because what one can see is that while the films there's nothing about Jewish identity and certainly nothing about Zionism,
philanthropy is a different thing. And from the 1920s already, those studio heads, which supposedly are not interested in their Jewish identity,
are all involved with the United Jewish appeal and with Palestine appeal.
But it's not out of a Zionist motivation, as they see what called in the language of of the Zionist movement non-scientists not anti, but non.
These are people who support Jews immigrating to Palestine, especially long suffering Jews in Eastern Europe now that can't come to the United States,
but they don't think that they should themselves end up in Palestine or the successful American Jewish community.
And this is this is one point the importance of philanthropy that begins and very early.
And we will see continuing into the years of Israeli statehood, and Tony will be talking about it later in Israeli context.
The second thing, of course, is the importance of the Holocaust and the place of Hollywood within American Jewish community,
which didn't or showed some interest in the Zionist solution, but which waned.
And then it grew up again in the 1930s.
But certainly, the Holocaust is a turning point, an important turning point in drawing support for Zionism in the American Jewish community.
And one can see that in Hollywood, too, with adverts such as it.
Keep at it, Mr. President. American Arts Committee for Palestine.
When you have a long, long list of Hollywood stars, not all Jewish.
Many progressives who all supported Zionism at the time,
but a fair majority of them Jewish or all supporting free to allow free emigration of Jews to Palestine.
This was the big goal of the Zionist movement since then, from 1939 to 48, when immigration was restricted.
The third point to make is the interests of the particular interests of Hollywood in the right wing.
Revisionist right wing of the Zionist movement, the interest of the most important figure,
well known and quite a bit has been written about the man on the right.
Ben had one of the most successful screenwriters in the first half of the 20th century,
whose open support in the late 1940s to the gun, in particular in philanthropy, but also in public statements.
It's hard to believe that any American newspaper would print an ad today,
which says a letter to the terrorists of Palestine and American Jews heart rise in happiness every time that you blow up a bomb.
This is the rhetoric of the late 1940s,
and this is a full page ad in the New York Herald Tribune and quite a few other newspapers across the states and in Variety.
So you've got support for the gun in Hollywood.
But then you've got big opponents also. And an interesting thing here is already pre-state.
There is a campaign between the labour movement which more or less controls the Jewish
establishment in Palestine and its right wing opponents over the heart and soul of American Jewry.
But specifically Hollywood. In the early 1950s, after Israel is established, something old late 40s and early 50s, something new is added to that.
And that is the first films which are to do with the Zionist endeavour or campaign against the British and early and Israel in its early years.
The two themes here on the two important themes which will carry through in films in decades to come.
Jewish Regeneration in Palestine campaign against the British forces and the British Administration of Palestine.
And the idea of Israel when established in Palestine before that as a haven and the place where
Jews escaping the Holocaust can find redemption and also recovery the psychological recovery.
The film on the Left is the first Hollywood film made about about Zionism in a big way,
and this is the Zionist campaign or the Injune campaign against the British.
It was produced by Universal Studios because the wife of one of the owners of the studio,
Frank Spitz, was a big, big, big supporter of the gun in Hollywood.
And when this film was made just after Israel was established, the one concern of the Israeli government's consulate just established in Los Angeles,
was to make sure that the gun doesn't mention get mentioned too much as part of political campaigning in Israel.
In fact, Menachem Begin as a character was supposed to be in that film, and in our research we found that he was left out as one of these.
This is now campaigning about who did more to allow Israel to be established and will continue in further films.
The first film film about modern Israel, Kirk Douglas stars in the jugular,
and the interesting thing about this film is that it shows the the progressive attachment and involvement with Israel at the time.
These are not just Jews, but these are progressive Jews, and they are in love with the idea of the is the drug trade union.
Frank Sinatra is one of them a big campaigner for these. The.
That's why the donation is for essentially Nazareth with a Jewish Arab one and and the kibbutz movement.
Fred Sinnerman came to Israel already in late in late 1948.
The war wasn't over, yet tried to make a film about a kibbutz fighting and withstanding an Arab attack in 48 with Carl Forman didn't succeed.
Both became Big Israel supporters, but they went on to make High Noon and to make glory for both themselves as part of Hollywood history.
But the idea was a film about Palestine.
Then this film, The Juggler, is the creation of Michael Blanford, who was had to testify before the House of un-American Activities.
Stanley Kramer is the producer and kid Douglas. These are all Hollywood liberals Jewish too.
Not all Jewish, majority Jewish, but who support Israel, not just as a place where Jews come to,
but which offers kind of a new hope for the world of social arrangements and highlighting the kibbutz, which is central in the juggler.
And we can talk about it perhaps a little later so we don't run out of time.
Nevertheless, Hollywood and it's important.
Remember that both if you have a ethnic identity and a nationalist ideology, which makes you want to make films such as Little States and Universal,
or if you are interested in making films about an Israeli kibbutz or the Israeli or the lagoon,
ideological considerations commercial considerations are the most important.
And both these films that we saw earlier didn't make money. And for Hollywood, that's the bottom line.
There have been many, many projects. We discussed some of them in our book.
There was a lot of enthusiasm in making films about Israel, but they just didn't materialise.
And the answer is always with a commercial bottom line.
This is a high risk industry. If you build a building for 15 million,
50 million pounds and you want it to be a top class hotel and this covered for two years, you might lose money.
But you've still got a building worth a lot of money. So you might lose a few millions, but not everything.
A film if you invest 50 millions in a film and nobody wants to see it,
you've got something to show your grandchildren more or less than to keep on the shelf.
And that's why it's a high risk industry where you can make a lot of money and lose a lot.
And as one pro Israeli Hollywood producer told the Israeli consul in the 1950s, Ahmadu on Saturday go to synagogue.
I give to Israel in terms of philanthropy by bombs, but I'm not going to risk my job with the shareholders on making a film about Israel.
We won't work. And the most successful trend in the 1950s for Israel was the biblical trend, which was at its peak in Hollywood in the 1950s.
And there was something for Israel to there, both in terms of the Bible and it being the Holy Land.
There was an attempt to bring over big Hollywood productions to Israel.
It didn't succeed that much because again, they want to film in the Holy Land, but Spain looks nearly the same.
It's the Mediterranean. And if the Spanish government will give 2000 soldiers for free while the IDF doesn't have the money to do that,
the Israeli army, then of course, in the end, the filming will be in Spain with all the best intentions.
However, this man on the left, Moshe Perlman,
who was Israel's probably most important propagandist or hasbara person in the Israeli, called the polite term.
From 1948 to the 6th to the early 60s and very famous for his interest in Hollywood, he was rumoured to be wanted to be a screenwriter.
A lot of people claimed that he styles himself from Groucho Marx.
He's actually from the East End of London.
So Perlman managed to get quite a few projects to be interested in Israel, or at least to show the Israel story.
For example, Solomon in Sheba, where we have here Yul Brynner as King Solomon defeating Egypt.
This is made just after the Suez War and basically the the Hollywood narrates the story as if it's Suez happening in biblical times.
And of course, the Egyptians lose, which is a bit different to the real story where Britain was on the receiving end.
OK. Exodus is the most famous, most important, probably most successful product of Israeli propaganda.
Still, since the seat states exist has been established to this very day,
it is a film again that has the theme of Zionist endeavours before Israel's establishment.
It focuses on that Israeli government hoped it would say more than that.
But then it's such a long book. Leon Morris's book, which was also written with the help of the Israeli government.
That's even to make it into three hour film and a very talkative film, and people are coming in and going out of doors.
Or, as a New Yorker reviewer wrote, there's more in this film and the world of the story.
But, but but but in this film, Exodus is a very first of all.
It's one of Hollywood's most important screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, and the subject of the film himself.
And there's a lot of very interesting discussion in this film on terrorism, the nature of forces, a liberating agent.
And again, these ongoing arguments are liberating of nations this ongoing argument between the goon and the Haganah,
the unofficial army or paramilitary organisation of the of the Zionist leadership.
But the most important thing about Exodus the success is we can see it in the picture here,
and this is from the moment that one of Israel's top Foreign Office officials read in in.
Los Angeles let on let him read the book, which was supposed to be a script.
He understood the important thing about what this book will mean.
There's a young, heroic soon to become Israeli, but a young non-Jewish American falls in love with him,
and she represented the non-Jewish American public audience.
And at the beginning, she's not anti-Semitic, but she feels uneasy about Jews of the end of the book in the film, especially the book.
She's wearing a cover to build the Temple Hats, which is the the symbol of the kibbutz movement,
all of the Zionist endeavour and her key and ready to go over to go on and fight for Israel.
And it's her growing attachment part in the film to Paul Newman of East St. Mary to Paul Newman.
And on the top of this. It's supposed to be mountable.
It's actually a little hill by the Arab village of Mushait, not far from there,
but that was where it was convenient to shot the scene to shoot the scene.
And and he says that I'm a Jew. This is my country.
And then she falls all over him.
Now the important thing here is that one thing all those who are trailers of Israeli propaganda were worried about in the late forties.
Already, that support for Israel comes through and because of Jewish suffering and especially the Holocaust.
That was the big galvanising of the Jewish and especially non-Jewish support.
But those are the men who probably established with the Israeli Foreign Service rights in 1948.
In time, there will be other people who are suffering and perhaps will be suffering more.
The fact that we have support because we're suffering, that's not enough and we haven't managed, he says, to convince the world that this is the case.
The land that we have a particular claim for the land and of course, exodus does that in a big way, in a very big way.
Beyond all the other justifications, in fact, Dalton Trumbo there says that you know that both Jews and Arabs have a claim to this land.
There is a line there, but the whole film three hours tells something which is, of course, very different.
I'll conclude here and just say that the era of heroism continued in the 1960s
with a few films which followed Exodus because of the success of Exodus.
The moment the film is successful, others will be made.
But because these weren't such successful films, both Judith again in a kibbutz in Galilee,
like three other films, The Importance of Kibbutz Not Just Israel,
and cast a giant shadow with a whole load of Hollywood stars Kirk Douglas again, Frank Sinatra, Yul Brynner and and others.
So. And John Wayne, of course,
we even supported the production and and this is the height of Hollywood filmmaking in the first era about Israel, the era of heroism.
Tony, thank you. So going to switch focus now we're going to continue on our narrative.
We're still in the 1960s, but I want to switch focus away from the movies themselves to what's happening behind the movies.
As I said on the outside outset, whereas interested in what's going on off screen as on it.
So I'm going to talk for a few minutes about some very interesting people you may not have heard of,
but were really important players in the relationship in holding Israel.
Door sharing is the guy on the left sitting in between the two actors door, Sherry was head of MGM.
Joel Sherry turned out to be very important bridge between Los Angeles and New York.
A character who, when Ben-Gurion made his first visit to the United States in 1951,
it was this head of MGM who arranged a party for Ben-Gurion and helped launch the Israeli bombs.
Door sharing also was sort of the architect of what was called the Motion Picture Project,
which was an organisation set up within Hollywood to try and engender greater interest in Israel,
training gender, greater interest in the depiction of Jews on screen in the right way.
So quite an influential character. He goes on to be head of the Anti-Defamation League in the 1960s as well.
So a man who's bridging Hollywood in New York,
the guy on the right whose face you can see is the cream of the Cream again, was a New York based studio lawyer who ran.
One of the big film studios are corporations, united artists in the 50s and 60s,
and it was the United artists who by and large made a number of movies which Gore has been talking about the pro-Israeli company within Hollywood.
But what's interesting about Krim for you can perhaps recognise you.
Crim is talking to that. He's about to introduce the actress Shirley MacLaine to President Kennedy,
and Kareem was a really important mover and shaker in the relationship between Washington and Hollywood in the 1960s.
Krim was very close to Kennedy's successor.
Johnson was very influential in helping Johnson to become very pro-Israeli, so he will be aware that it's in the 1960s,
around the 67 war that the United States tends to really step in and be pro-Israeli in terms of military support, a very strong relationship with LBJ.
The rumours not to spread them here, but we interesting view that that Kreme's wife was very close indeed to Johnson.
She became one of the first people to know the 1967 war had started one in Johnson's ranch.
He went, he knocked on her door, she was in a negligee and he wanted her to know that the war had started.
We can leave out the questions.
This guy, this guy who's standing up by the side of the camera that he is person, a person who none of you I imagine will have heard of.
This is Rabbi Max Nussbaum, who was a sort of encourager and co-ordinator of Hollywood support for Israel from the 40s through to the 70s.
Nussbaum ran one of the most prestigious synagogues in Hollywood Temple Israel of Hollywood.
Here he is with Cecil B. DeMille, who's sitting in front of him on the set of the Ten Commandments and other biblical movies of the 1950s.
But Max Nussbaum, as a rabbi, was supreme in converting gentiles to become supporters of Israel.
His two great successes in that respect were Liz Taylor, who you can see there on a visit to Jerusalem.
Liz Taylor was converted roundabout in 1960 to Judaism and became a really long standing supporter of Israel through until her death in 2011,
always visiting Israel during and after war times in Lebanon War of 1982.
She goes for so-called peace mission. I'm Liz Taylor.
Some of you are too young to know who Liz Taylor was, but believe me,
you can't get a bigger movie star than Liz Taylor and have someone as famous as that supporting Israel.
It's got to count for something. Sammy Davis Jr., on the other hand, less famous than Liz Taylor, but really important.
What a period. Who was also converted to Judaism and converted to be a supporter of Israel by our friend Max Nussbaum again in 1960,
having a Black Americans support Israel, particularly after the 1967 war,
when the question of the occupied territories comes up when a number of African-Americans
are turning against Israel because they see it as part of this white colonisation.
Having Sammy Davis Jr. support Israel through again through until his death in 1990 was politically very important.
We throw into the mid seventies now, and you're started off by talking about this period,
the mid to late 1970s as being the high point of the relationship between Hollywood and Israel.
And the interest that Hollywood took in the Entebbe raid of 1976,
this daring Israeli mission to rescue a predominantly Israeli passengers held captive in Africa in 1976,
Hollywood such an interest in this story and that makes perfect sense.
It was a great story. I mean, you couldn't make up a better story for Hollywood in this respect.
A daring mission involving a military mission that pays off in large respects.
The saving of vast majority of the hostages. Little unknown information one.
One filmmaker who wanted to make a film about Entebbe had himself been one of the hostages.
You couldn't make it up. Seventeen Studio is getting involved in wanting to make a movie about Entebbe.
17 to tally movies are quickly made and you see these telling movies here and there you have again,
you have the major stars of the period all wanting to start.
Not necessarily because they're pro-Israeli. A number of them Richard Dreyfuss, Dodd, for instance.
And he admitted, I just did it for, you know, half a million quit sort of half million dollars.
I didn't do it for pro-Zionist, et cetera. Israel wanted to make a help Hollywood to make a big blockbuster on Entebbe, and it failed.
Hollywood wasn't up for it because the big Hollywood studio who wanted to make that was trumped by these quickly made telly movies.
So again, going back to our point four, you're always making commerce always comes first rather than ideology.
We biologically talking so far about the supporters of Israel.
In Hollywood. Though, weren't in this period that be talking about now many supporters of the Palestinians,
but one person who stands out is Vanessa Redgrave, who's there on the left.
This is Vanessa Redgrave on location in southern Lebanon and the making of a film called The Palestinian, which came out in 1977.
She stars in it, I think. And the film sort of film's most infamous moment is when she's dancing and has a Kalashnikov above her head.
This is active support for what many saw as Palestinian terrorism.
A year after, because she's made that movie, she becomes a hate figure amongst the Jewish right in the United States.
And lo and behold, she wins an Oscar in 1978.
She wins an Oscar for starring in a Holocaust movie. So the Jewish American rights, the Jewish Defence League, are out to campaign against her.
She attends the Oscars, the 50th birthday of the Oscars.
Millions are watching on TV Big Night. And what does she do when she's given the Oscar for Supporting Actress?
She accuses those outside of being Zionist hoodlums.
And there's a gasp in the auditorium, muttering a quiet silence descends.
And this is the first time that anyone I've said anything like this about Israel on a major screen life.
This was quite a moment for Hollywood's relationship with Israel.
She carries on to be a helper. Can you see that boy in the photograph on the right,
how she's being compared with Yasser Arafat and Adolf Hitler again, amongst many on the political right?
A Jewish political writer in the United States? Was her career affected by that?
Some people argued afterwards that she was grey listed, not black, Mr. Grey listed.
We didn't find much evidence of that. We didn't find much evidence of her having her career ruined in any way.
70S and 80s are the beginning of the great terrorism phase for Hollywood in the 70s and 80s and 90s,
Hollywood makes more movies about Israel, which are about terrorism than anything else.
Terrorism is extraordinarily popular on the small, large screen as entertainment Hollywood feeds that.
And here are a couple of movies. One is Black Sunday is important because it comes out in 1976, same year the Entebbe crisis.
And it's the first American movie which actually depicts Palestinians on American soil.
And it stars Robert Shaw as the Israeli secret agent who stops this Palestinian massacre of a Super Bowl crowd.
Ten years later, we have movies like Delta Force.
Delta Force is that schlocky, crappy, badly made movie which was really popular, especially amongst teenagers and those in their 20s.
The Delta Force, importantly, is made by Menahem Golan,
Menahem Golan is an instance of an Israeli filmmaker coming from Israel, making it big in Hollywood.
Menachem Golan is the king of the terrorism movies in the 80s and 90s,
and one can imagine what these terrorism movies depict and this Delta Force depicts.
It's almost like an Entebbe crisis 10 years on with the Americans Israeli military coming together to save some hijacked passengers.
You know, you've been Toby worked, Toby will continue to work as entertainment.
Yeah, moneymaking. We're moving through to the last couple of decades now, and I'm going to just how much time do we have?
We're speaking with Steven Spielberg.
The most powerful film maker. For the past 30 years, surely.
Schindler's List. The filmic document of the Holocaust for most people.
President Clinton encouraged all schoolchildren to watch Schindler's List.
It's the document, it's a historical document for many people. Around that time, Spielberg rediscovers his Jewish roots.
And through that, he becomes an active supporter of Israel and is most and has been amongst the most powerful supporters of Israel.
Off screen. Many of you won't be aware of the activities that Spielberg has been involved in for the
past 30 years in trying to bring bring reconciliation between Israel and Palestinians.
Now onscreen, he does this courtesy of his film Munich, which comes out in 2005.
Europe talked about Exodus, this film that came out in 1960. I think Munich is after Exodus, the most important Hollywood picture about Israel,
because it tells us about this shift that's taking place within Hollywood, where liberal directors like Spielberg are.
For those of you who haven't seen Munich,
Munich is about the retribution the Israeli secret services want on the those people who caused the Munich massacre of 1972 and Eric Bana,
his character. You see Eric Bana there on the right.
His character leaves that this onslaught against the Palestinian terrorists but becomes disaffected by it becomes disillusioned by it.
And this, in many ways, is what Spielberg is trying to say. Look, is this really the way to peace in the Middle East if we're just.
Killing one another. Was a very controversial film to some extent in Israel, more so amongst American Jews in the United States.
Some of those people accused Spielberg, in fact, of it being a traitor.
Omar is a film which came out about 10 years ago and isn't quick illustration of of the
degree to which Palestinian films are now getting more screen time in the United States.
So again, this shift that's gradually taking place. Omar was the first wholly Palestinian film that was nominated for an Oscar.
It's a film about the difficulties of living under occupation. Coming towards the end now, just think of two images left 2014 Gaza war.
Everything kicks off in Hollywood,
there's a major row in Hollywood in open row between people on the right and on the left about what Israel is doing, whether it's right or wrong.
And we see a major row between the likes of Jon Voight, who's there on the left for Israel, on the political right when it comes to Israel.
And Javier Bardem and his wife, Penelope Cruz. Bardem and Cruz accused Israel of genocide.
So freighted term. In the United States, a genocide.
And this again kicks off as a Twitter storm. There are pop stars getting involved in this,
as well as major movie stars like Sylvester Stallone and is a big row over what we now in Hollywood think about Israel.
Filmmakers like Arnon Milchan. Israeli born veryimportant filmmaker in Hollywood, producer of Pretty Woman,
another major movies of the past 30 years on a Milchan is is finger by a number of anti-Semites, as you can see here.
It causes people to think about, Hey, this control of Hollywood by Jews, etc. This long trope gets warmed up again by many on the political right.
And so that's a hoary old accusation becomes reborn again.
I think courtesy of the Gaza war of 2014, these two people sum up, I think, the differences within Hollywood right now.
You know, Michael Douglas. On the left, photographed with his family in Jerusalem, who's a liberal, avowedly liberal,
but still a very strong supporter of Israel, including of Israeli military.
You have Natalie Portman on the right, the Israeli born, whose distance herself a Zionist,
which has distanced herself from especially the Israeli government,
both of these actors were awarded what's called the Genesis prise, which is Jewish noval.
Douglas was happy to turn up for this. To go to Israel to receive the prise.
Natalie Portman refused to go to Israel to receive a risk of Netanyahu would be at the ceremony.
So this differences between liberals and Hollywood. But finally, the final image the Israeli relationship with Hollywood is still very strong.
Gal Gadot. Probably the biggest Israeli movie star right now.
Wonder Woman. She is an illustration of how Israeli stars and filmmakers have now quite an influence within Hollywood itself.
The Spy, which is a Netflix series from 2019, was made by Gideon Ruff.
An Israeli filmmaker has moved to Hollywood who was also responsible for the spy series Homeland.
These are two illustrations of how there's been almost a brain drain from Hollywood in the last 10 years or so.
And these people have moved to Hollywood to ply their trade.
The relationship therefore works both ways live with him.