He blew up a hotel, killing 100 innocent foreigners!!!
The message in this movie comes across as this: the jews have suffered a lot, therefore it is now time that someone else suffers. There will be peace one day in Israel - but it will be won by arms, not by negotiation.
It may be right - but it's a rotten morale.
I think Dov becoming a terrorist was his reaction to his treatment in the concentration camp, and at the end didn't he promise Karen to give up his terrorist ways? By the way they really did blow up the King David Hotel...former Prime Minister of Israel...Begin, was the head of the Irgun (the role Akiva had)
How can suicide bombers be considered heroes to their own people...they are you know.
The Irgun were not considered heroes by their ppl...that is why Barak banished Akiva from his house. The book has a lot better conversations about this.
Yeah i agree that Dov becoming a terrorist was a reaction to his past....in the book they also go in depth about what happened in the Warsaw ghetto and how his whole family was killed.
Can people please stop referring to the Irgun and Stern Gang as if they`re the entire Israeli nation , it`s like saying all Irishmen are in the IRA . In a nation of over 1,000,00 people a couple of hundred were in the Stern gang and several hundred were in the Irgun , hardly representative
After the King David Hotel bombing David Ben Gurion described the Irgun " as the enemy of the Jewish people " and he meant it . The Haganah ( precursor to the Israeli army ) then withdraw the vague support it had given the Stern and Irgun and many Stern and Irgun members had to watch them selves not only from the British but their Jewish brothers
The Dov Landau character was a Warsaw Ghetto survivor, where he saw his family and friends murdered. He had hate from his experiences. The King David Hotel was British military headquarters (in film and reality) and the British were warned to evacuate the building before hand. Independence comes with a price - sometimes violence is necessary (see US revolution or any struggle for independence) The blowing up of the hotel was not the definite move toward statehood or representative of Ben Gurion's policies. The Stern gang and the Irgun were not the majority and were outside the Ben Gurion quasi-government that led to the establishment of Israel through diplomacy, worldwide pressure and from the Holocaust. Besides, the Arabs also were killing innocent people and the Irgun/Stern Gang responded or initiated.
-was the blowing up of the british HQ in Jerusalem on July 29 th 1946.
The british were given warning to evaculate the building...." I beg your pardon!
Do you realise precisely who you are talking to?
You are adressing the honourable winners, the very emancipators of strugle against the Nazis, whose determination, courage and steadfastness
saved our civilisation (at a time, when the US was not even IN the war - during the battle of Britain in 1940). If the US had not been attacked at Pearl Harbour in 1941,it is very doubtful if they have ever entered the war.I shall briefly remind the gathered gentlemen, that if Britain had fallen, God forbid, then an invasion into mainland Europe, would have been impossible.
Imagine what a blow, quite literally, that an attack of the british HQ was in 1946, just ONE year after, the emancipators of armed strugle, had won the war - and in the process liberated many jews. Without the british
sticking to their word in 1939, that an attack on Poland, would be equal to an attack on Britain, hardly any jew would be left, and the Nazis
could have ruled and it would have been the end of civilisation as we know it.
It is for this, that this attack, and many other on brits in Mandate Palestine, still to this day, have not been forgotten or indeed forgiven in Britain.
Oh dear, somebody needs a history lesson. As a Brit, I can say with some confidence that the British mandate in Palestine is one of the most shameful episodes in our history. Having let down the Poles and Czechs at the start of the war, invasions which led to millions of innocent deaths, we went on to double-cross both the Jews and Arabs in Palestine in an effort to prolong the Empire and the evils of colonialism. We were eventually saved by the valiant efforts of the the US, USSR and Commonwealth
The Jews in Palestine joined and fought for the British Army to a man, while at the same time Britain was sending back thousands of Jews escaping Europe to their deaths. Comparitively, while we were brave and lost thousands of lives, Britain didn't suffer as much as the vast majority of nations and peoples during WW11, but we did lose the Empire, which seems to be a problem for you.
Britain committed a quarter of their military strength to hold onto Palestine and suppress and persecute Holocaust survivors, because they happened to reside near countries with Oil. We lost, we left with our tails between our legs and we deserved it.
We did nothing to save the Jews in Europe and effectively harrasssed the few survivors who did escape.
anyway, eventually Dov Landau learnt that hatred was not the way forward despite his terrible childhood experience.
I think you need the history lesson.
shareno i think you do, idiot
shareThanks for your contribution kid.
shareThe meaning of Israel is clear. The Jew has experienced too much death, and a portion of the Jewish people decided that they would die quietly no more. So it is: and no argument, no clever political talk, no logic and no parading of right and wrong can change this fact. The Jews returned to Israel because it was their ancient land. From 1810 onwards Jews in the Land of Israel have been murdered by Arabs. The pious Jews of Safed , who would raise no hand in their defense , had been robbed and murdered and burned out again and again by Arabs-as the Jews in Jerusalem and Tiberias had been robbed and slain and burned out. Bedouin Arabs passed through Palestine at will-and robbed and killed Jews as a profitable thing. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries , Arab feudal lords in 'Palestine' organized pogroms precisely as the Czar had organized pogroms. 'Palestine' was a blighted and empty land until the Zionist Movement returned it to life.
I like you arguing against stereotypes with historical facts. Nevertheless, I wonder if it makes sense discussing with people as mad and antisemitic as some of the contributors here.
shareThe part about the blighted land being brought to life is spot on. I visited Israel a little over a year ago and the difference between the farm land and land that wasn't was just amazing. The Israelis worked hard for their land of milk and honey - the fresh fruit was amazing.
shareYour ludicrously inaccurate re-writing of history tells us nothing about either The Second World War or the creation of Israel, but it does tell us a great deal about you.
sharefinally, somebody who has the intellectual courage to speak about the winners of WW2 in less than awe-inspired terms and who engages in self-criticism ("as a brit"). equally important is to acknowledge the contributions of the soviet union to the war (20 million dead, folks -- you do the holocaust math).
*exodus* is playing this afternoon in NYC and i came to this forum before embarking in a 208 minute viewing session to discern whether i would be subjected to over 3 hours of zionist propaganda. plus WASPS playing jews.
Considering that Britain wasn't allowing anyone into Israel (and keep in mind, these refugees really didn't have a lot of options), a land that Britain had colonized, I'm really not sure what you're talking about.
You should get over it. It's not like Americans hate the Japanese for Pearl Harbor. And furthermore, I really doubt your assertion that if Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbor that the U.S. would not have joined the war.
Where are you typing from? Parliament? "The honourable winners"- WWII was won because of alliances, not because of one nation. Get over yourself, and think in terms of the reality of the situation, not in terms of what could have happened. Nobody in this world is ever completely good or bad, so why would an entire nation such as Great Britain be?
Sorry to inform you but when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem al--Husseini(mentioned very clearly as the villian which he was) ordered his goons to stab ordinary Jews walking in the streets in the Ben Musa riots in 1920. THAT was the area's first terrorist acts. There were clashes in 1929 as well as 1936-9. These followed for many years and resulted in separate Jewish defense militias such as the Hagannah, Palmach and Irgun. They has different philosophies. There were more riots and clashes. The Mufti eliminated oppostion (mostly moderates) and imported Arabs from surrounding countries. This polarized British Palestine into 3 warring camps by the late 1930's. The British, the Arabs under the Grand Mufti (uncle of Yasir Arafat)(and a guy named Qassam) and the Jews. There was 28 years of conflict before the State of Israel was declared. The original intent was a multi-ethnic state but radical Arab Muslims took that out of the equation by the time the British cowed by threats to oil supplies with WW2 looming imposed an embargo if Jews immigrating into the mandate. Thus sent many Jews back to Hitler and the concentration camps. Abandoned by much of the world Jews fought in the War of Independence as if they were on their own. They were to a large degree.
As for the statement of Worlds first terrorist act. There were many in the 18th century and one started WW1 in 1914.
lol. The Brits won WWII?! LOL. Exactly how was a broke, starving country going to beat Germany? They'd already had their rears kicked off the continent and been thoroughly whipped in the Pacific. The Allies could have invaded from the east or the south. Yes, the island was important, being so close to the continent, but it wasn't an absolute necessary.
This will be the high point of my day; it's all downhill from here.
I know who I am talking to; A hypocritical Brit or a real uninformed Anglophile. Terrorist acts can be traced back to the year "0". Don't you think what the Germans did to the Jews was terrorism?
And the Brits were warned of the bombing. They were just to arrogant to "take orders from the Jews. "On July 22, 1946, the calls were made. The call into the hotel was apparently received and ignored. Begin quotes one British official who supposedly refused to evacuate the building, saying: “We don’t take orders from the Jews.” 42 As a result, when the bombs exploded, the casualty toll was high: a total of 91 killed and 45 injured. Among the casualties were 15 Jews. Few people in the hotel proper were injured by the blast.
[deleted]
The King David Hotel was not functioning as a hotel at the time, but as British Military HQ.
And they were given THREE warnings to get out of there.
Their response? "We don't take orders from Jews."
And I would like to see some sort of proof for this "100 innocent foreigners."
[deleted]
repsonse to: maurinquina on Wed Jul 5 2006 14:35:57
i can't believe people really think like this. the jews have been persecuted more than any other people in history. they are a people to be respected for their resilience. after reading exodus my respect for them bordered on awe. i would rather stand with the jews and israel and be persecuted for it than to cower in a corner and let another holocaust take place any day. again, i really can't believe in 2006 people still harbor feelings like this for such a beautiful people. anytime people are killed, there is harm done; no group of people are parasites. what a horrible thing to come in agreement with. people, no matter where they come from are precious and life is to be respected. it's sad this person has bought into such garbage.
I found this thread fascinating and full of information. When I was in highschool my Jewish History teacher described the Irgun (that is a generic term they were dvided in Etzel and Lehi ) as heroes and freedom fighters. Over the years, as I have grown weary of terrorist methods, I have changed my mind. In my novel (set in Jerusalem 1947) I describe Irgun members as well-meaning terrorists, and most characters (Jewish and Aryan alike) do not condone their actions, but I was afraid to get critics branding me as Anti-Zionist or "self-hating Jew". It was refreshing to read that not all Israelis look up at the Irgun. (By the way, in my novel I am also critical of the British administration).
share[deleted]
One wing of King David Hotel was taken over by the British High Command as their Intelligence HQ. This was actually pretty fairly represented in the film, Paul Newman mentions it when he meets Eva Marie Saint on the patio and they join each other for dinner. Not the whole hotel, just one wing. The other part of the hotel operated as a hotel.
What isn't made clear is that this was the Intelligence HQ for the British. Just one day before the hotel was bombed the British raided the Irgun and obtained truck loads of documents about all the sources, suppliers, spies, and supporters of not just Irgun but Haganah and others. Think about the part of the movie when Newman enlists the support of that Cypriot who provides him material support to get the Exodus ship loaded and help the Jews escape the camp in Cyprus. Well there were thousands of people (and countries) secretly supporting Jewish independence and the British, though they did promise Jewish independence at the end of WWI they were not just very reluctant to deliver on that promise they were actively subverting it, in large part because of promises made to the Arabs and of course because of oil.
The film has it kind of backwards. In the film they show the British raid the Irgun after the bombing. In fact the raid happened first, and with the raid the British obtained all the record, receipts and so on. So with all those documents the British would be able to cut off all the Irgun and Haganah supplies, find out who was collaborating with Jews, financing their independence movement, providing material support and even spying against the British. So the real reason the Irgun blew up that wing of the hotel to destroy the evidence collected. It wasn't so much an attempt to kill people but to destroy those documents and preserve the supply lines, save the spies from capture, save their supporters from arrest or embarrassment or worse, etc. Call it freedom or terror I am not making a moral judgment, only pointing out what the film seems to omit. The film makes it seem more of a question of "should we terrorize the Brits or make diplomacy with them" and for sure that was one difference between Irgun and Haganah, but the decision to blow up the hotel had almost nothing to do with ideology like that. It had almost everything to do with destroying the intelligence information the British had gathered and obtained in a very recent raid on Irgun headquarters.
Well based on that logic, 9/11 was justified because bin Laden warned the United States that he was determined to attack it! You can try to justify the King David Hotel bombing all you want, but it was still a malicious act of terrorism which murdered about 100 innocent people.
"This year I'm voting Republican. The Democrats left a bad taste in my mouth."
-Monica Lewinsky
Watch V for Vendetta, One persons terrorist is another persons freedom fighter, it depends on what side your on I guess. If this had been a anti - Israeli movie, he would have been considered a terrorist.
Spiders! They want me to tapdance, I don't wanna tapdance!
he was portrayed as a hero because he was a hero!!
seriously he did exactly what i would've done. to me Dov just seems natural and justified. Irgun were instrumental in giving Israel it's independence-the made the British leave faster then the Haganah did, and had they waited longer the Soviet Union probably wouldn't have given Israel any UN support (the Soviet Union reverted back to it's state of raving antisemitism shortly after 1948).
on another point, my father, who has a young man in the 1940's heard a lot about the Stern Gang (which was really called Lechi) and Irgun. he heard that most of the membership were Holocuast survivors, which makes them all the more heroic-instead of being broken and and cowardly by their experience they chose to fight back against the world which had either murdered them (like the arabs) or the ignored them (like the british).
when i researched it i found out that many of the commanders of Lechi and Irgun were Mizrahi jews often from Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen Morocco and even Afghanistan. aside from the usual Poles and Russians. this is unsurprising-the Arabs were so cruel to the jews (not the same way that europeans were but still awful) that the Mizrahi knew what the Arabs were really like (judge a man on how treats his subordinates not his equals) having suffered under them. it follows that Irgun and Lechi were the ones who most fought back against the Arabs. I would like to know more about their holocaust membership-from what i can gather they seemed to be doing a lot of illegal immegration, so they were more or less getting people direct from the concentration camps. but anyone have any more imformation?
Do I look as if I care?
[deleted]
So Palestinian terrorists are freedom fighters. Nice to hear that from a Jew.
~~~~~~
Palestinian terrorists are not "freedom fighters" because it´s not freedom that the are fighting for, they are fighting for destroying the state of Israel, they are fighting against jews because of religious reasons and they fighting also for revenge of killed terrorists. They have a totalitarian ideology and they were influenced by the nazi-antisemitic ideology.
They also show that they are not "freedom fighters" in the fact, that they are not killing police officers or the military like for instance the IRA did in 1920 against the british, no, they are just killing everybody who is jew, who is sitting in a cafe or just buying vegetables in a market place.
If they would fight for freedom they would use other methods for fighting.
[deleted]
"Palestinian terrorists are not "freedom fighters" because it´s not freedom that the are fighting for, they are fighting for destroying the state of Israel"
they are fighting against jews because of religious reasons and they fighting also for revenge of killed terrorists
They have a totalitarian ideology and they were influenced by the nazi-antisemitic ideology.
They also show that they are not "freedom fighters" in the fact, that they are not killing police officers or the military like for instance the IRA did in 1920 against the british, no, they are just killing everybody who is jew, who is sitting in a cafe or just buying vegetables in a market place.
Always remember that characters in a film do not necessarily represent the filmmaker's point of view. The character of Dov Landau is created to represent that fictional person: an extermination camp-survivor, who would understandably be full of feelings of vengeance for what was done to him and his family. Also note that three hours (or so) before the bombing of the King David Hotel, a note of warning was transmitted to the British High Command in Palestine, but they chose to ignore it.
Allen Roth
"I look up, I look down..."
For German organised Holocaust he is taking a revenge to Brits (who saved his people) and Palestinians who didn't have anything to do with Holocaust. On the other hand, Zionist tried to cooperate with Nazis (because of the identical ideologies) but Nazis ignored them. The only plausible conclusion is that no thing as rotten as the organisation of "Israel" can go on for too long, you know. Like Hitler Germany, like South African apartheid, like American slavery.
~~~~~~
You CANNOT fight EVIL by doing EVIL. Only Good destroys evil. Suicide bombers on either side are doing evil by murdering unjustly and that further makes people hate them and fight them even more. Its a vicious circle and one that will never end unless both sides put a stop to combating their evil foe by doing evil them selfs.
share[deleted]
Fact is. Warnings were only sent 25 mins before the explosions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
-------------
Warnings
Rear of the hotel, 1931
Since the bombing, much controversy has ensued over the issues of when warnings were sent and how the British authorities responded. Irgun representatives have always stated that the warning was given well in advance of the explosion, so that adequate time was available to evacuate the hotel. Menachem Begin, for example, writes that the telephone message was delivered 25-27 minutes before the explosion.[14] It is often stated that the British authorities have always denied that a warning was sent. However, what the British Government said, five months after the bombing, once the subsequent inquest and all the inquiries had been completed, was not that no warning had been sent, but that no such warning had been received by anyone at the Secretariat "in an official position with any power to take action."[15]
American author Thurston Clarke's analysis of the bombing gave timings for calls and for the explosion which he says took place at 12:37. He said that as part of the Irgun plan, a sixteen year old recruit, Adina Hay (alias Tehia), was to make three warning calls before the attack. At 12:22 the first call was made, in both Hebrew and English, to a telephone operator on the hotel's switchboard (the Secretariat and the military each had their own, separate, telephone exchanges). It was ignored.[4] At 12:27, the second warning call was made to the French Consulate adjacent to the hotel to the north-east. This second call was taken seriously and staff went through the building opening windows and closing curtains to lessen the impact of the blast. At 12:31 a third and final warning call to the Palestine Post newspaper was made. The telephone operator called the Palestine Police CID to report the message. She then called the hotel switchboard. The hotel operator reported the threat to one of the hotel managers. This warning resulted in the discovery of the milk churns in the basement, but by then it was too late.[4]
---------------------
It could be said that modern terrorism we see today was practised first by the right wing Zionist movement in the creation of Israel. They even put explosives in soldiers bodies, and booby trapped them so when other soldiers found them they would also take them out.
There was a very good documentary detailing the events that took place at the time.
One thing seemed certain. The British wanted to integrate the Jews into the region, as I think they made promises to that effect. Unfortunately, there were already people living there. The Palestinians. BTW, Jews were already living peacefully in that region with the Palestinians for years. What agravated the situation was that too many Jews were moving into the region. The British had to set up camps as a buffer. The Jews saw this as another concentration type thing and some decided to kill soldiers to push forward a new Israel.
This obviously, worked in the short term. The British, decided enough was enough and left. The Jews created their new home and persecuted the Palestinians living there. And now we have over 50+ years of bloodshed and still going.
The problem with feature films, is that you really should take everything with a pinch of salt. Documentaries, give a more balanced factual account. Of what really happened. Esp the ones with interviews with people living there at the time from both sides.
Fact is. Warnings were only sent 25 mins before the explosions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
-------------
Warnings
Rear of the hotel, 1931
Since the bombing, much controversy has ensued over the issues of when warnings were sent and how the British authorities responded. Irgun representatives have always stated that the warning was given well in advance of the explosion, so that adequate time was available to evacuate the hotel. Menachem Begin, for example, writes that the telephone message was delivered 25-27 minutes before the explosion.[14] It is often stated that the British authorities have always denied that a warning was sent. However, what the British Government said, five months after the bombing, once the subsequent inquest and all the inquiries had been completed, was not that no warning had been sent, but that no such warning had been received by anyone at the Secretariat "in an official position with any power to take action."[15]
American author Thurston Clarke's analysis of the bombing gave timings for calls and for the explosion which he says took place at 12:37. He said that as part of the Irgun plan, a sixteen year old recruit, Adina Hay (alias Tehia), was to make three warning calls before the attack. At 12:22 the first call was made, in both Hebrew and English, to a telephone operator on the hotel's switchboard (the Secretariat and the military each had their own, separate, telephone exchanges). It was ignored.[4] At 12:27, the second warning call was made to the French Consulate adjacent to the hotel to the north-east. This second call was taken seriously and staff went through the building opening windows and closing curtains to lessen the impact of the blast. At 12:31 a third and final warning call to the Palestine Post newspaper was made. The telephone operator called the Palestine Police CID to report the message. She then called the hotel switchboard. The hotel operator reported the threat to one of the hotel managers. This warning resulted in the discovery of the milk churns in the basement, but by then it was too late.[4]
---------------------
It could be said that modern terrorism we see today was practised first by the right wing Zionist movement in the creation of Israel. They even put explosives in soldiers bodies, and booby trapped them so when other soldiers found them they would also take them out.
There was a very good documentary detailing the events that took place at the time.
One thing seemed certain. The British wanted to integrate the Jews into the region, as I think they made promises to that effect. Unfortunately, there were already people living there. The Palestinians. BTW, Jews were already living peacefully in that region with the Palestinians for years. What agravated the situation was that too many Jews were moving into the region. The British had to set up camps as a buffer. The Jews saw this as another concentration type thing and some decided to kill soldiers to push forward a new Israel.
This obviously, worked in the short term. The British, decided enough was enough and left. The Jews created their new home and persecuted the Palestinians living there. And now we have over 50+ years of bloodshed and still going.
The problem with feature films, is that you really should take everything with a pinch of salt. Documentaries, give a more balanced factual account. Of what really happened. Esp the ones with interviews with people living there at the time from both sides.
While you are correct in stating that feature films play with facts for artistic and dramaturgical purposes, your confidence in "documentaries" is seriously misplaced. Many documentaries do exactly the same thing, as they generally result from a director's or producer's point of view; an excellent example is Michael Moore's "documentaries," which are really propaganda for his particular point of view (I am not here suggesting that there is anything false in his films, but that the point of view is manifested in the editing, commentary, and what is OMITTED from the film.)
Further, many of your statements are questionable. I have done research on this period for many years, and never heard of Thurston Clarke. What are his credentials?
Actually, whether a warning was given 20 minutes before the bombing, or 3 hours, is not significant. No one with any expertise in this period questions that the Jewish forces (or splinter groups therof) committed many terrorist acts during the Mandatory period. The Arabs did so as well. But that is how almost every country is born. The US began with demonstration, protest, and violence against the British soldiers. Ditto for virtually every other country: India, Egypt, Iran, etc. To suggest that "modern terrorism was first practiced by right-wing Israelis" is worse than false; it is highly misleading. Depending on when you place the beginning of "modern," (I generally believe it to be around 1800, with the demise of the Old Regime, or perhaps you mean "recent terrorism," I am not sure)> In either case, ther has been virtually no conflict in world history that did not involve terrorism, in adddition to regular military forces ("state terrorism"). The German Nazi forces in WW II practiced terrorism (the killing of innocent civilians) against many nations other than Jews: Poles were virtually deprived of their entire intellectual and political classes, as soon as the Nazi juggernaut entered in September 1939. 2 million Soviet POWs were deliberately starved to death, etc etc. Nixon said that he would "bomb Cambodia back into the Stone Age etc etc." Think of Muslim-Hindi violence in India and Pakistan, or Communist and Nationalist conflict in China, etc etc etc etc
But your biggest error is your statement "Jews and Arabs had been living peacefully together" for years. Arab protestation against Jewish immigration began when the Jews began purchasing land from the Arab effendi absentee landlords, around 1900. There were huge Arab riots and savage violence against Jews in 1920, 1929, and many other years, which the British were unable to contain. There were only minority moderates on both sides. What began in 1947 was only a continuation of the sporadic violence for over 50 years.
The fact is that violence has been committed by both sides against each other for over a century in the land confiscated from the Ottoman Empire following the end of WW I. Neither side can be declared guilty or blameless. But that is all normal for a conflict over Land.
The most important fact is that, in order to achieve some sort of peace, the past must be left behind (I won't say "forgotten"), and focus must be laid onto the future. In my opinion, the major obstacle to peace in the region is the refusal of a large minority of Muslims to accept the existence of a sovereign State of mainly Jews, following the UN Partition Resolution in 1947. This minority starts inculcating Muslim children in schools from their childhood. We have their textbooks to prove that. These kids grow up to become suicide bombers, rocket throwers, etc. What do these people think?--that a sovereign nation of almost 6 million people will be driven out of the area? They ought to care more for their own children's future, and compromise with a country willing to live with a two-state solution.
Allen Roth
"I look up, I look down..."
"It could be said that modern terrorism we see today was practised first by the right wing Zionist movement in the creation of Israel. "
"Modern" in history generally begins with the period of the American and French Revolutions, which should remind everyone of that most famous act of terrorism, the Boston Tea Party.
I'll also take issue with your labeling of Zionism as right wing - it is born in the mid-19th C. as a philosophical response to anti-Semitism's unrelenting nature in the face of unprecedented assimilation among European Jewry. It of course takes on a more urgent political character in the century's last decade with the Dreyfus Affair and Russian pogroms, but its Nationalistic character is so much in keeping with similar Romantic-era intellectual and artistic responses that would be much better characterized as distinctly left of center. I suggest you brush up on the 19th C. cultural and philosophical movements, and perhaps more of history in general. Remember that when we don't understand history we have no hope of understanding our own world.
As for your devaluation of the contributions art makes to informing, a cursory read of a some Dickens and Eliot (George, that is) might give you some understanding of how art instructs, and how novels led the Western world to unprecedented social reforms, such as the outlawing of child labor, little things like that.
It's interesting, I pick up no email notifications for more recent post replies, but I receive one for a post 3 years ago.
This is the documentary I watched all those years ago on British TV. It appears to be a balanced account as it takes the viewpoints from either side.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcaoFacQaPE
"The Age of Terror: In the Name of Liberation
The King David Hotel bombing was an attack carried out by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organisation, the Irgun, on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946. ... The attack was the deadliest directed at the British during the Mandate era (1920--1948) and more people were killed than by any bombing carried out in the subsequent Arab-Israeli conflict. The event has been called by British authorities, major international publications including the New York Times, and academics as a terrorist attack aimed at civilians. ... Israel continues to deny any wrongdoing...
- wiki
A 3BM Television (London) production, in association with Discovery Europe
Directors: Jon Blair, Dan Korn, Polly Williams
Narrator: Tim Piggot-Smith
In effect Israel had set in train the model of the sort of terrorism that most of the world deplores."
With regards to my comments of this being the first act of 'modern terrorism'. I believe at the time I believed and concurr with the statement with the programme makers. This is the first account of such terrorism we see today. 'A new age of terrorism' and a 'story of the birth of modern terrorism' - terrorism via tv and the masses.
The King David Hotel was a legit target. It was the British Army HQ and thus a fair military target. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, the British Army holds the legal responsibility for civilians killed because they based military units in a civilian area.
On top of all of that, the Irgun made three phone calls asking the British to evacuate the hotel. They refused because they thought it was a joke.
Am Yisrael Chai and God Bless America
And can you prove that the premise is wrong?
"Never again" is not a slogan in Israel. It's an
everyday commitment.
Here's what they say: "The Arab countries can
lose hundreds of times again Israel. Israel
can only lose once."
I suppose that many Jewish people, though I am sure not the majority, did view the British Army as a legitimate enemy in the same way that some Iraqis view the US Army at the moment.
Whether it was fair game to slaughter scores of conscripted British citizens in the notorious hotel explosion will depend which side of the terrorist/freedom fighter argument you take.
The difference though is that Britain had an international Mandate re Palestine whilst the USA merely took it upon itself to invade Iraq.
If the American film industry can ever bring itself to make a major film in which the USA and its military are portrayed as the 'baddies' I shall forgive Hollywood for the anti-British slant Exodus undoubtedly portrays.
However, that's never going to happen is it? Hollywood always re-writes history so that Good Ole Uncle Sam always comes out whiter than white and on a moral high ground way above everyone else.
The sad thing is that many people, especially many insular Americans, actually believe the Hollywood version of history as the truth.
"If the American film industry can ever bring itself to make a major film in which the USA and its military are portrayed as the 'baddies' I shall forgive Hollywood for the anti-British slant ..."
Do you mean films/shows like "Full Metal Jacket," "Platoon," "Jarhead," "Generation Kill," "Apocalypse Now," any number of sci-fi/post-apocalyptic movies like "Starship Troopers" or "Serenity," or perhaps anti-establishment movies like "V for Vendetta" (which I know was Britain but the message was the same)? Do you mean movies like those?
Also, "Exodus" hardly needs to be slanted to be anti-British. If you look at the history, Britain did work against the establishment of Israel in many ways. I didn't see anything in the film (just on a casual viewing) that was grossly distorted or made up in that respect.
"...a legitimate enemy in the same way that some Iraqis view the US Army at the moment".
How can they come to this conclusion ? The American Military is temporarily there while the Iraqi military rebuilds itself. Iraq can not yet defend itself against their enemies. The sooner the Iraqi military gets up to speed, the quicker American troops will return to the USA. If your point is that there are irrational thinking people that see the American troops still in Iraq as a 'conquering' military they better think again. It would be 100% irresponsible for all American forces to pull out until the Iraqi military is ready to defend the people.
As to the post stating that America was 'going it alone' against the will of the UN. All I can say is if members of he UN hadn't become corrupt (those buying oil from Saddam against the embargo) the US would have been wrong to liberate. There was corruption in the UN - supposedly Kofi Annans own son was involved in addition to high level French and German officials. If the UN is 'the police force of the world' but its discovered the 'police force' is corrupt and taking bribes from law breakers/criminals well then what would you expect to be done to correct the problem ? Saddam was clearly in violation of the 'cease fire' agreement - any reasonable person knows that, if the UN is going to exist and be effective, the agreements have to be obeyed and failure to do so leads to harsh 'punishment'. Otherwise the UN should just close its doors and the NYC real estate sold off to the highest bidder. Saddam was given the opportunity over and over again, as the US (Collin Powell) was being back stabbed on the floor of the General Assembly and in the court of popular opinion (press) world wide. It was scandalous. America 'made it right' period. I know of no American that wants our military to 'occupy' Iraq. Let them get up to speed, protect them from foreign interlopers that want to derail the process for their own illegal ambitions in the interim and then come home with best wishes for a democratic Iraq. It seems to me that anyone that would argue against all this as being reasonable is unreasonable themselves, corrupt or has 'issues' other than what they publicly proclaim. If France and Germany hadn't had corrupt high ranking officials I think we would have had their vote on the floor (UN). If you lived in a town where the police force refused to take action against a known drug dealer because corrupt officials taking bribes insured the police would take no action but a group of individual officers, knowing there was something very wrong with the 'picture' decided to take action to protect all those suffering in the hands of said drug dealer I guess you could say "they didn't follow the 'rules' themselves" by acting alone (which really isn't true either - other countries volunteered to help) to take down said drug dealer but you'd be unreasonable IMHO. It was one of those situations that had no clear precedent in how to go about dealing with corrupt in the UN. President George W. Bush showed leadership in a difficult situation and at least with the goal of liberating a people from a tyrant and promoting democracy - a far cry from your implication that the US 'invading' Iraq is the equivalent of the Brits actions. If the US goes beyond providing protection of the Iraqi people while they rebuild, I will be the first person to cry 'wrong' !! Until then I think we should recognize reasonable actions in a tense situation. To date, the US has slowly but prudently been relinquishing more and more 'authority' back to the people of Iraq - its been a move in that direction only.There's been no reason to suspect otherwise so why make this comparison ? if your just pointing out that their are people in Iraq that happen to feel this way then I apologize - there will always be unreasonable people and malcontents that will always criticize for the sake of criticizing. How can removing Saddam and providing protection to those Iraqis going to the polls for the first time be a bad
thing ???