A Zone of Disinterest at the Oscars Josh Levs
https://www.newsweek.com/zone-disinterest-oscars-opinion-1878405
When a British writer-director accepted an Oscar Sunday night for Zone of Interest, a fictional movie set against a backdrop of the very real Holocaust, he showed that his own grasp of reality is dangerously lacking.
In repugnant, victim-blaming remarks, Jonathan Glazer said, “We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of Oct. 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack in Gaza.”
Note to Glazer: No one is hijacking your Jewishness or the Holocaust. That idea is an antisemitic myth popular among some deluded people who call themselves “progressive.” It’s a myth that fuels terrorism and attacks on Jews all over the world.
The differences between the real world and the imaginary one that Glazer described could not be more stark. In his imaginary world, an “occupation” somehow “led to” the October 7 terrorist attacks. In the real world, Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, and the Palestinian Authority has long controlled Palestinian areas of the West Bank. Hamas, backed by Iran, carried out the most unimaginably evil terrorist attacks of modern times because years of brainwashing children in UNRWA-backed schools and training them to seek Jihad have created a radicalized population that celebrates the slaughter of Jews with candy and fireworks.
In Glazer’s imaginary world, the Holocaust is “hijacked.” In the real world, Jews (the people of Judea) have spent centuries trying to return to Israel, their indigenous homeland that they were expelled from by empires—long before the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were killed. The largest population in Israel is made up of Jews who had to flee Arab nations (not Europe) for their lives, losing everything.
In Glazer’s imaginary world, what’s happening in Gaza can be adequately described as an “ongoing attack.” In the real world, it’s a military response to terrorists responsible for atrocities that killed more than 1,200 people and subjected countless numbers to sexual violence including gang rape and the systematic mutilation of women’s genitals. More than 130 of the hostages taken that day are still believed to be held in Gaza. Hamas has also continued to fire rockets into Israel.
Any loss of life in war is tragic. There’s no question that some civilians have been killed by Israel’s targeted strikes against Hamas locations. Hamas, using names like “Gaza Health Ministry,” claims that more than 30,000 people have been killed, and refuses to say how many are combatants. Having covered death tolls in wars, I’ve seen throughout this conflict that the numbers released by Hamas cannot be trusted. A new statistical analysis by Wharton professor Abraham Wyner is the latest sign. (Israel says more than 12,000 terrorists have been killed.)
Lies like the ones Glazer pushed are fueling the anti-Israel mobs that are blocking streets, disrupting events, tearing down posters of Israeli hostages including babies, and going after Holocaust museums, all while calling for the kind of “ceasefire” in which Israel simply stops fighting back and allows its people to be attacked. Meanwhile, those of us who recognize reality can see that the war would end instantly if Hamas returned the hostages, disarmed, and allowed for a non-terrorist government to finally start building a modern, non-radicalized society in Gaza.
Glazer deserves all the condemnation he’s getting, and more. Perhaps the most powerful words come from David Schaechter, president of the Holocaust Survivor’s Foundation. The 94-year-old was the only one of his 105-member family to survive the Holocaust. In a statement, he said Glazer should be ashamed for using “the platform of the Oscars ceremony to equate Hamas’ maniacal brutality against innocent Israelis with Israel’s difficult but necessary self-defense in the face of ongoing barbarity.”
A good Oscars speech would have gone something like this: “On Oct. 7, the world saw the biggest slaughter of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust. Many of us have long vowed, ‘Never again.’ That’s what Israel is fighting for—and leading the global battle against Islamist terror. Let Israel live in peace and security alongside a Palestinian state.” (For more, check out a terrific video from the Israeli TV show What a Wonderful Country showing what actor and proud Jewish activist Michael Rapaport would say if he hosted the ceremony.)
But no one at the Oscars even mentioned the hostages, the dangers Israel faces, or the huge spike in attacks against Jewish people. On all this, there was absolute silence.
Glazer will surely face no discernible consequences. After all, Hollywood is a town in which even notorious antisemite Mel Gibson has been ushered back into starring roles. I won’t see any projects Glazer is involved in, but that will have no effect on him. Here’s my message to him: There are lots of great resources that can teach you actual history and geopolitics. Get in touch if you ever choose to enter the zone of sanity.
Josh Levs is a consultant, entrepreneur, and author, and a former journalist for NPR and CNN.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
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