Hollywood clearly still has a long way to go in combating racial and gender discrimination, but another equally pernicious aspect of the US film industry has remained largely ignored: blood money. More than ever before, Hollywood appears to be addicted to funding from some of the most brutal regimes on earth, whether in the form of reaching into lucrative new markets, securing new investment streams, or developing creative content.
Saudi Arabia has become a major source of funding for Hollywood with much blood on its hands. Its financial capacity is smaller than China, but the potential negative impact is just as significant.
A year ago, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) engaged in what Forbes called his "prince charming" act in Hollywood, promising billions in investments and a lucrative undeveloped domestic market where cinemas has been banned until recently.
Ignoring the massive human rights violations, starvation and death Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen had inflicted on the Yemeni population, Hollywood insiders probably saw MBS and his entourage as a miraculous new source of "dumb money". But the Saudi crown prince, like his Emirati neighbours, sees Hollywood as a major component of his own China-like campaign of highly controlled cultural opening that serves to reinforce rather than challenge the ruling elite's hold on power.
Indeed, with Chinese investments in Hollywood at least temporarily down, the Saudis and their $230bn sovereign wealth fund, along with the UAE (which has already signed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of deals with Hollywood companies) were being viewed as the "new Chinese". That is, until Jamal Khashoggi's brutal murder forced some of the film and talent companies like Endeavor to suspend agreements already in process with the kingdom.
The fallout of the Khashoggi murder, however, is likely to be only a temporary setback for Saudi investments in Hollywood. Many companies, including theatre chains like AMC, chose to proceed with their Saudi deals. As the Committee to Protect Journalists has noted: "Everyone who had investments or relationships with Saudi Arabia knew their human rights record ... and the war in Yemen ... the treatment of women." With hundreds of millions of dollars in extra revenue a year on offer, "privately" a large share of executives have "expressed hope that a mitigating explanation would emerge that would allow business to continue."
And just a few months after the tragic murder of the Saudi journalist, news reports about Netflix conceding to a Saudi censorship request demonstrated just how dangerous this newly involving financial relationship can be. Just like with China, Saudi Arabia's investment is likely to translate into casting and scripts that seek to please the source of funding.
The claim by the head of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Jay Sanderson, that there is no "country that has a stronger relationship with Hollywood than Israel" is not wide of the mark. This is not just about the support for an overly represented pro-Israeli Jewish community in Hollywood or the role of Israelis in US film industry today, but also about how Israel itself has become a major source of talent onscreen and an important voice in programming.
As Moment magazine explained in a 2018 article, the development of Israel as a creative source for Hollywood was decades in the making and the product of intensive efforts by the government and the local Jewish community to develop the talent pool. With "master classes" and all-expense paid trips, these efforts helped Tel Aviv become a major incubator of the industry, leading to local original shows being adapted in the US (such as In Treatment, The Affair and Homeland).
Despite the fact that more actors and musicians are coming out in support of Palestinian rights and even BDS, the overall relationship between Israel and Hollywood remains incredibly strong.
The Israeli government has been investing significant efforts to ensure it stays that way, not just by fighting an all-out war against BDS, but also by promoting the development of local content and ideas that support stereotypical portrayals of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims as terrorists and Israeli security and intelligence forces as wounded and heroic, if flawed, defenders of the Middle East's "only democracy" (regularly "trending" Netflix shows like Fauda and Inside the Mossad are a good example of this phenomenon).
It seems Hollywood will continue to ignore Israeli crimes, even as the likes of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu promise to bring millions of new Jewish settlers to the occupied Palestinian Territories and engage with the openly genocidal far-right Otzma Yehudit party.
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| Israel's Apartheid Wall in Bethlehem |
It will continue to ensure successful "hasbara" (propaganda) efforts by the Israeli government, turning Israel's various wars into award-winning psychological self-examinations and even the apartheid wall into a prop in the zombie film, World War Z, (which the Times of Israel called the "greatest piece of cinematic propaganda for Israel" since the 1960 film Exodus).
In his acceptance speech after winning Best Director for his film, Roma, Alfonso Cuaron declared that the job of artists is "to look where others don't. This responsibility becomes much more important in times when we are being encouraged to look away."
In reality, Hollywood's financial and creative relationships with some of the most powerful forces in the entertainment universe (and here the outsized role of the US military in the shaping of Hollywood narratives is equally impossible to ignore) have created an environment where the very values that Oscar night is supposed to celebrate - unfettered creativity, insightful filmmaking, the building of bridges and the remembrance of the world's "forgotten" peoples - can never be realised.
If Hollywood's most creative and progressive stars are serious about changing this dynamic, they must start by refusing investments by governments engaged in massive human rights violations.
VENEZUELA
"Hoje é a Venezuela, amanhã pode ser o Brasil",
adverte Pesquisadora sobre intervenção estrangeira
BBC: Interview with Nicolás Maduro
adverte Pesquisadora sobre intervenção estrangeira
BBC: Interview with Nicolás Maduro
An Ocean of Lies in Venezuela
PALESTINA
The Archibishop and the PLO: Hilarion Capucci, a Freedom-fighting catholic priest from Aleppo who stood up for the Palestinian cause in Jerusalem.
Do dia 1° de janeiro a 28 de fevereiro, 16 palestinos já foram mortos na Cisjordânia. Sete deles crianças. Dezenas foram aleijados ou sofreram ferimentos graves.
So far, since January 1st 2019, 16 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank. Seven of them children. Dozens were handicapped or seriously injured.
Dozens were handicapped or seriously injured. The IDF - Israeli occupation forces, killed four Palestinian children and one adult during the month of February. A sixth Palestinian, Ahmad Ghazi Abbas Abu Jabal, 30, died on 3 February from wounds sustained during protests along Gaza’s boundary with Israel the previous month. The four children killed during the month were all injured by Israeli fire against Palestinians protesting along Gaza’s boundary with Israel during Great March of Return demonstrations.
Hasan Iyad Abd al-Fattah Shalabi, 13, was shot in the chest and killed during protests east of Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on 8 February.
That same day, Hamza Muhammad Rushdi Ishtaiwi, 17, was fatally shot in the neck during protests east of Gaza City. Hasan Nabil Ahmad Nofal, 16, died after he was struck in the head with an Israeli-fired tear gas canister during protests east of Bureij in central Gaza on 12 February. Yusif Said Hussein al-Dayeh, 14, was shot in the chest and killed during protests east of Gaza City on 22 February. A 21-year-old man in the West Bank, Abdallah Faisal Tawalbeh, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers at al-Jalameh checkpoint near Jenin on 4 February. 
Israel’s decision to withhold part of the taxes it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and plunge it deeper into crisis starkly illustrates the hypocrisies and deceptions at the core of the two governments’ Relationship. Under the terms of what are now the quarter century-old Oslo accords, Israel is responsible for collecting about $200 million each month in taxes, which it is supposed to pass on to the PA, the Palestinian government-in-waiting in the West Bank. The money belongs to the Palestinians but Israel has temporarily withheld it on several occasions in the past as a stick with which to beat the Palestinian leadership into line. On this occasion, however, the stakes are far higher.
On February Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu belatedly implemented a law passed last summer that requires his officials to retain part of the taxes owed to the Palestinians – those that the PA transfers to political prisoners’ families as a monthly stipend.
It echoes the Taylor Force Act, a law passed by the US Congress in 2016, that denies American economic aid to the PA until it stops sending those same stipends to 35,000 families of prisoners and those killed and maimed by the Israeli army.
The PA has tried to avert that threat by channelling the payments through a separate body, the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
Israel and Washington regard the prisoners simply as terrorists. But most Palestinians view them as heroes, those who have paid the highest price in the struggle for national liberation.
The Palestinian public no more believes the families should be abandoned for their sacrifices than Irish republicans turned their backs on those who fought British rule or black South Africans forsook those who battled apartheid.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas called Israel’s actions “robbery” and said he would rather cut funding for health and education than for the prisoners and their families. “They are the most respected and appreciated part of the Palestinian people,” he declared.
Then he played his ace card. He said he would refuse all tax money from Israel until the full sum was reinstated.
That risks plunging the PA into financial meltdown and – most importantly for Israel – might ultimately lead to the disbanding of the Palestinian security services. Their job has long been to act as a security contractor, keeping order on Israel’s behalf in the West Bank.
The security forces hoovered up a massive 20 per cent of the PA’s $5.8 billion state budget last year.
The PA is already reeling from a series of hammer blows to the Palestinian economy. They include Donald Trump’s decision to cut all funding to UNRWA, the refugee agency for Palestinians, and to hospitals in Israeli-occupied East Jérusalem.
In addition, Abbas reportedly declined $60m in annual US aid for his security services last month for fear of exposing the PA to legal action. A new congressional measure makes aid recipients like the PA subject to American anti-terrorism laws.
But the current stand-off between Netanyahu and Abbas lays bare the duplicity of the situation for all to see.
The PA leader may say the prisoners are the most cherished Palestinian constituency but he also describes his security services’ co-ordination with Israel as “sacred”.
The security services’ role is to assist the Israeli army in foiling Palestinian attacks and in arresting the very Palestinians he extols. Abbas cannot realistically hold true to both positions at the same time.
Netanyahu, on the other hand, has nothing to gain from harming the Palestinian security services, which the Israeli army relies on.
The decision to withhold taxes was taken chiefly to boost his popularity as rival right-wing parties compete for who appears the most hawkish before April’s general election.
Paradoxically, in withholding the PA’s tax money, Netanyahu is punishing Abbas, his supposed peace partner, while showing a preference for Hamas, Abbas’s arch rival in Gaza.
Although Israel categorises Hamas as a terror organisation, Netanyahu has been allowing extra funds into Gaza from Qatar to alleviate the enclave’s dire conditions. Further, there is something richly ironic about Netanyahu rebuking the PA for rewarding Palestinian “terrorists” in the same week he negotiated a deal to assist bringing Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power party, into the Israeli parliament. The party is Israel’s version of the Ku Klux Klan, disciples of the late rabbi Meir Kahane, whose virulently anti-Arab Kach party was outlawed 25 years ago as a terror organisation.
So appalling is the prospect of this unholy alliance that even pro-Israel lobbies like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the American Jewish Committee felt compelled to issue statements condemning Jewish Power as “racist and reprehensible”.
Netanyahu believes the extra votes Jewish Power will attract to the right in the election will ensure he has the support necessary to build a coalition that can keep him in power.
But there is another glaring flaw in Netanyahu’s tax grab.
If Abbas’s coffers run low, he will simply send even less money to Gaza, which is already being choked by Israel’s lengthy blockade.
That would intensify the unrest in Gaza, which could lead to rocket attacks into Israel and even larger mass protests by Palestinians at the perimeter fence encaging them.
At the same time, if things remain unresolved, an already fragile PA will move closer to collapse and Hamas might then be poised to fill the void left in the West Bank.
Loss of power for Abbas, combined with loss of a security contractor for Netanyahu, appear to make this confrontation mutually self-destructive – unless Netanyahu and the right have another card up their sleeve.
Hani Al Masri, a Palestinian policy analyst, has wondered whether Netanyahu is setting the stage for US President Donald Trump to introduce his long-awaited “peace deal” after the election.
Much of Netanyahu’s coalition is keen to annex Palestinian areas outside the main West Bank cities, destroying any hope of a Palestinian state ever emerging. Trump might be amenable.
In this scenario, argues Al Masri, Israel would aim to “end what remains of the PA’s political role, preserving only its administrative and security role”. It would be reduced to bin collections and law enforcement.
Should the PA reject the process of being hollowed out, Israel and the US would then look for an alternative, such as rule by local warlords in each Palestinian city and expanded powers for Israeli military rulers in the West Bank.
The denial of taxes to the PA may not yet presage its demise. But it points to a future in which Palestinian self-rule is likely to become an ever-more distant prospect.
Occupation is nothing to sing about.
Em 2019, a Semana Anual do Apartheid israelense acontecerá do dia 18 de março a 8 de abril no mundo inteiro.Ative um comitê em sua cidade, escola, universidade.
Para organizar as manifestações político-culturais, entre em contato com o BDS Brasil (https://bdsmovement.net/pt) ou acesse diretamente o link internacional apartheidweek.org e organize as atividades de solidariedade com o povo palestino há 71 anos ocupado.
O tema deste ano é "Parem de armar o Colonialismo".
E não se esqueça de checar a origem dos produtos que consome para boicotar Israel, inclusive Hewlett Packard.
The 15th Annual Israeli Apartheid Week of actions will take place all around the world between March 18th and April 8th 2019 under the theme “Stop Arming Colonialism”.
Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is an international series of events that seeks to raise awareness about Israel’s apartheid regime over the Palestinian people and build support for the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. It now takes place in over 200 cities across the world, where events such as lectures, film screenings, direct action, cultural performances, postering, among many more help in grassroots organizing for effective solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle.
Israel is able to maintain its illegal occupation and apartheid regime over Palestinians partly due to its arms sales and the military support it receives from governments across the world. The United States alone is the single largest supplier of arms and military aid to Israel, followed by European states. These directly sustain Israel’s oppression and human rights violations.
In the Global South, Israel has been known to supply weapons to genocidal regimes in Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and elsewhere. Presently, Israel is a major arms exporter to right-wing, authoritarian regimes from Brazil to India, the Philippines and beyond. These weapons are promoted as ‘field-tested’, which means they have been used to kill or injure Palestinians. In fact, Israel is already promoting the technology it has used to repress the Great March of Return in Gaza calling for the right of refugees to return home and an end to the siege. These arms deals finance Israel’s apartheid regime and its illegal occupation while simultaneously deepening militarization and persecution of people’s movements and oppressed communities in countries where they are bought.
The Palestinian-led BDS movement has reiterated the demand for a military embargo on Israel in the light of Israel’s violent repression of the Great March of Return. International human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have also responded to the Israeli massacre in Gaza with this demand. The UK Labour Party, in its conference in September 2018, passed a motion condemning Israel’s killing of Palestinian protesters in Gaza and called for a freeze of arms sales to Israel.
Ending arms trade, military aid and cooperation with Israel will undercut financial and military support for its regime of apartheid, settler-colonialism and illegal occupation. It will also end the flow of Israeli weapons and security technology and techniques to governments that suppress resistance of their own citizens, people’s movements and communities against policies that deprive them of fundamental rights, including the right to the natural resources of their country.
A military embargo on Israel is a measure for freedom and justice of Palestinians and oppressed peoples in many parts of the world. It can successfully be achieved with massive grassroots efforts, similar to the sustained global mobilization that eventually compelled the United Nations to impose a binding international military embargo against South Africa’s apartheid regime.
Israeli Apartheid Week 2019 will be an important platform for building the campaign for a military embargo on Israel. We invite progressive groups to organize events on their campuses and in their cities to popularize and build momentum in this direction.
If you would like to organize and be part of Israeli Apartheid Week 2019 on your campus or in your city, check out what events are already planned at apartheidweek.org, find us on Facebook and Twitter, register onlinehttp://apartheidweek.org/organise/ and get in touch with IAW coordinators in your region.
For more information and support, please contact iawinfo@apartheidweek.org.
Meus sentimentos aos pais de Arthur Araújo Lula da Silva, pelo falecimento do filho aos 7 anos de idade, e ao avô, o ex presidente Lula.
Manuela d'Avila: "Que tipo de gente debocha da morte de uma criança? Os crápulas? Aqueles criados sem amor? O tipo de gente de Eduardo Bolsonaro."
Assino embaixo.
Meu desprezo total aos vermes Bolsonaros por pisotearem a jurisprudência nacional e por não terem nenhuma compaixão pelo sofrimento imenso de seres humanos.
"Larápio posando de coitado"! Xô Satanás!! Esses Bolsonaros são ignorância & mal encarnados.
Marighella, o filme em Berlim
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