SUICIDE BOMBING PROPAGANDA FILM

Murder, Lies, and Videotape By Phyllis Chesler
“Paradise Now” is a brilliant and powerful piece of propaganda which has already won the Blue Angel Award for best European film at this year’s Berlin Film Festival and which has also been sold to 45 countries, including Israel. The film was financed by Dutch, French, and German backers. The director, Hany Abu-Assad, who has lived in Holland for the last twenty years, describes himself as a Palestinian with an Israeli passport. Reviewers have described the film as an attempt to “humanize” suicide killers, to “dramatize” what goes through their minds, and as an “ingeniously calculated thriller.” IT'S ALSO A PACK OF LIES. READ ON.

NEEDLESS TO SAY, THE NYTs LOVES IT:

Palestinian Film Looks at Suicide Bombers
While suicide bombers are often portrayed in the West as brainwashed automatons, Mr. Abu-Assad said his research in Palestine suggested that people acted mostly out of conviction. “The daily humiliation is so big that people just agree to it,” he said. “The biggest motivation is the feeling of impotence. You are captured in your own city; you can’t do anything about it; you are nothing.” “By attacking the enemy society,” he went on, suicide bombers “go from losing to winning. Religion is just a ceremony. That is the research I did. And I’m not the only one saying it. All the talk about brainwashing and virgins and the other life - it’s just ceremony.”

HERE'S A CAPTION FROM A PHOTO ACCOMPANYING THE BBC DISCUSSION OF THE MOVIE: Shooting Paradise Now: "Palestinian children learn at a young age about the struggle for freedom. To some, the Palestinian martyrs are heroes. Here a child poses for a photograph at a rally organised by militants."

ACCORDING TO MSNBC: Suicide Bombers Are People, Too