Political Polarization in Hollywood

Michael Carmichael, August 2006...

Saban makes no secret of his keen support for the neoconservative policies of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, John Bolton, James Woolsey, Daniel Pipes and Donald Rumsfeld...

With major political clout in Tel Aviv and Berlin, Saban claims to swing a lot of weight in the United States, as well where he is known to wield the balance of power in right-wing Democratic Party circles. In Washington, Saban is known to have given twelve million dollars to the Democratic Party. His contributions to the Labour Party of Israel have not entered the mainstream media, but they are known to have been substantial. According to reports from party insiders, Saban’s political support comes with heavy strings attached. In an interview with the New York Times, Saban casually admitted, “I’m a one issue guy, and my issue is Israel.”

Earlier this month at a posh party to honor an Iranian dissident, Saban committed what many see as a faux pas. At a Hollywood reception held in honor of the celebrated Iranian dissident, Akbar Ganji, Saban’s one issue attitude to the state of Israel led to a confrontation with the guest of honor. Before an audience of eighty celebrities who had accepted invitations from Mike Medavoy to meet Ganji, Saban’s pointed remarks caused a scene. During Ganji's address, the Iranian nuclear project became a point of contention between Ganji and Saban. Ganji advocated total disarmament of the Middle East, but Saban objected sharply and argued that Israel needed its nuclear arsenal. During their exchange, Saban made an insensitive remark characterizing the Palestinian people as suicide bombers a crude tactic that introduced a double standard by demonizing all Muslims as terrorists. Precisely what point Saban was attempting to make remains obscure to this day, but he was apparently proposing that the Israeli nuclear arsenal is justified as a deterrent to the suicide bombing in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank although it seems doubtful that he was actually proposing an Israeli nuclear attack on Ramallah. When Saban launched his peculiar insult, Ganji reacted very coolly. With calm self-assurance, Ganji replied, "The only way is to ban the bombs for everyone." With that smooth put down, Saban lost face.

Medavoy's party was attended by eighty celebrities including: Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, Jake Gylenhaal and Mark Ruffalo who all witnessed Saban's clumsy and embarrassing attempt to discredit the guest of honor. They were not impressed. Ganji had just been released from a six-year prison term in Iran. After the contretemps, the audience snubbed Saban. Mark Ruffalo was quoted in the Los Angeles Times, praising Ganji, "This has put a whole new face on Iran for me. It deepens it and makes it more human."

In the aftermath of the Medavoy party, the political fallout is now perfectly obvious. Saban has stalked out of the Democratic Party and taken Spielberg, Katzenberg, Zucker and Yorkin with him. Mearsheimer and Walt might describe this realignment as a decisive move by the pro-Israel faction of Hollywood that is now in the process of jumping from the Democratic ship and moving over to the Republican Party. Perhaps, this epiphenomenon is only local and will be contained in California, but there is polling evidence that indicates the Orthodox Hebrew community in America is more attuned to the values of the Republicans than to the Democrats. Fortunately for the Democrats, this will probably be a relatively small leakage, as the vast majority of American Jews are liberal and progesssive in sharp distinction to Saban, Indyk, and their ilk. So, too are many Jews in Hollywood. Barbara Streisand, Elliot Gould, Alan Alda and many more come readily to mind as lifelong liberals and progressives.

At the same time, many Jewish leaders in California have been sharply critical of the policies of the government of Israel especially during its recent losing war against Hizbullah. Rabbi Michael Lerner, the founder of Tikkun, a liberal Jewish organization, recently accused the Olmert government of serious ethical violations of traditional Hebrew morality. Rabbi Lerner implored Americans to, “challenge Israeli policy – (because) Israel has crossed a moral boundary.” Elaborating on his theme, Rabbi Lerner charged, “It’s impossible as a Jew and as an American to not notice that a new human rights violation by Israel has taken place which manages to surpass many of its previous violations in cruelty and in the outrage it has generated.” Rabbi Lerner’s pleas were apparently lost on the man who became a billionaire by pandering the moral authority of Power Ranger ultra-violence and the principle of might makes right to under-age children.

If the current trend goes national, the political faction that Mearsheimer and Walt dubbed, "The Israel Lobby" appears to be transforming their coats into that plain Republican cloth that another California politician named "Richard Nixon" touted in his famous Checkers Speech. Ironically, since the death of Nixon, Watergate tapes have been released that reveal Nixon’s rabid anti-Semitism, his hatred and suspicion of people he termed, “The Jews.” Eventually, the attitudes of rank and file Republicans to Jewish concerns may cause some of Saban's disloyal group to regret their support of Schwarzenegger and his heavyweight neoconservative brand of Republican Party Lite.

Apparently Saban has not learned that mainstream political parties in the US are never devoted to one and only “one issue” - even when they are bullied by their most generous and well-meaning contributors, and much less those who split their allegiances between rival parties and nations other than the United States of America and the constitutional democracy for which it stands.

http://www.monitor.upeace.org/archive.cfm?id_article=381

How you manage to html code your posts so intricately and well is a mystery to us all. I hope this won't start a firestorm of debate but has anyone attempted to prioritize the order in which all the crimes, lawbreaking, abuses and quagmires that this maladministration has wrought must be addressed? What is the most important to address first? We are all beset on so many fronts we often don't know which to defend first. Some say impeachment. For others it is the war. Then there are all the constitutional and civil liberty abuses. The politicization of every department of our government, the failure of the media... it goes on. Glenn has chosen his master narrative and continues to band that drum. Which one should we all focus on first? What is your preference? We all have our own priorities. That's to be expected.