Beit Ha’Tfutzot, the Israeli Museum of the Jewish People, at its upcoming NAVAD award ceremony, will be giving an award to the producers of the We Con the World video. NADAV is a foundation created by Russian-Israeli oligarch, Leonid Nevzlin and his wife. Nevzlin was a senior executive in Russian’s Yukos oil company, who managed to escape that country and avoid the fate of his boss, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. One of Nevzlin’s Israeli political allies is Natan Sharansky.
LATMA, the rightist media advocacy group which produced We Con the World, is notorious for its videos featuring mock TV news anchors engaging in mock interviews with mock left-wing politicians like Pres. Obama. The videos are overtly racist and in atrocious taste (including We Con the World). The latter makes slurs against Islam claiming Allah dishonors truth and facts and that “Islam and terror brighten up your mood.” The parody also includes mock Muslims singing “we slaughter the Jews.”
The media satirists specialize in brutalist videos whose tone reminds me a great deal of the attacks of Im Tirzu. Among their favorite targets is Pres. Obama, or Hussein Obama as they delight in calling him. In one supposedly witty satiric skit he says that he hates Muslims and has made a deal that he will overlook Iran’s nuclear program if Iran will, in turn, eliminate Israel. Obama is also made to say through artificial video editing that he will “hunt down” Prime Minster Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. In another video, a fake Obama (in what looks like blackface makeup) says he has “hatred in his heart” for Israel and cannot stand it. He says that “dirty Jews won’t be missed by me.” And “I hate them, it so excites me.” And again to the Jews: “go explode or drown in the sea so the Koran can rule and grab the Kotel.” And “Iran, get Bibi before I’m gone, drop the big one.”
A mastermind behind LATMA is Caroline Glick, listed on the Jerusalem Post’s masthead as deputy managing editor (though Haviv Rettig Gur, a former Jerusalem Post reporter claims he hardly saw her in the building when he worked there). She is also a senior fellow at Frank Gaffney’s Shariaphobic Center for Security Policy. Glick is one of the most vicious and Islamocidal of the Post’s many extreme right-wing writers. One wonders why a museum dedicated to the entire Jewish people would honor a Jew who hates not only Arabs, Muslims, an American president, and “leftists,” but so many of her fellow Jews as well.
Even if one chooses to argue that this is satire and should not be taken seriously, the question arises–why honor it with an award named for the Jewish people? Is this the message that the Museum wishes to send to the world that such tastelessness represents either it or the Jewish people?
hi i am ready to take part in a demo against this shamefull event and sign a petition against the I hope that isreli peace org’ have kowledge of the event and wil take due steps aginst,,beit- hatfutsot” who hosts such an event.I am an Isreali living in rehovot near tlv. and can take part in activities. regards. yehoshua rosin. tel.972.8.9472447
I wasn’t to impressed by the Obama-song. But I did like this version of Jerusalem of Gold:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55rdid86m1M&feature=channel
I MUCH preferred Meir Ariel’s version which paid homage while also adding a much more nuanced gloss. Nomi Shemer was already a settler fanatic–how much more jingoistic could LATMA make the song?
yesterday my comment was up for moderation. Today it’s not there.
Computer glitches?
It’s possible that my WP comment system unthreaded it & it’s not in the right part of the thread. At any rate, here’s yr comment.