Would it be anti-Semitism to make note that the US entertainment industry is predominated by Jews? Studio heads, producers, financiers are disproportionately Jewish, fair to say? Television, newspapers, publishing houses, quite a number headed by Jews. We could throw in the fashion industry, department stores, talent agencies, advertising agencies, financial institutions, it seems so stereotypical, but it is oddly true. The head start which Jews got during Christianity’s Dark Ages when no one but a Jew could a lender be, has set people of Jewish lineage well ahead in the world of commerce. Businesses can have an air of waspness, as the Bourgeoisie always did, but behind them, financing them, were Jews. It is not defamatory to make this observation, is it? No disrespect intended toward Jews.
It’s like pointing out that due in no small part to the African-American heritage having involved the selective breeding of slaves, Black athletes now dominate every professional sport in their hood. Of late, even golf. This is not racist talk, it’s straight talk.
So let’s address the Jewish lock on the US communications industry. It looks waspish, all the talking heads, the fat men, are wasps, but the money men are Jews. On the TV, rarely is any fun made of Jews, or Israel. The Israeli lobby can dominate our congress but the media is not going to tell us about it. Our TVs can make fun of Evangelicals, lampoon all priests as pedophiles, browbeat black welfare mothers, but Jews are inviolate. Is it because Jews have editorial control? Who knows.
When something like the Mel Gibson outburst happens, I can’t help but wonder how complex this gets. Gibson’s drunken tantrum didn’t have to make the news, in fact the police tried to downplay it. Instead the media ran with it, making Mel Gibson a household joke. Why? He would seem to be a valuable media property, why tarnish it? Later when I saw the release of Apocalypto, with Mel Gibson’s name getting top billing, I had to wonder whether the anti-Semitic rant was tarnish at all. Maybe in some ways it made Gibson more popular. Maybe it enhanced the box office for Apocalypto.
Then I heard a pundit criticizing the excessive media coverage of Gibson’s tirade compared to the lesser media coverage of Hezb’Allah’s simultaneous rampage against Israel. That false comparison hit a note for me. The media hadn’t failed to report Israel’s travails facing rocket attacks, what they failed to cover was Israel’s assault on Lebanon and Israel’s pledge to bomb ten buildings in Beirut for every Hezb’Allah rocket that struck an Israeli. The media failed to report the Lebanese civilians being massacred out of all proportion to the Israeli soldiers killed. It failed to report the secret raids in Palestine under cover of the assault on Lebanon. The media continues to underreport the targeted assassinations of Lebanese and Palestinian politicians, duly elected, with whom Israel does not want to deal.
But in the midst of all the non-reporting on Lebanon, word was still filtering out about Israel’s atrocities. It was coming mostly over the internet, via international news sources, but the truth was reaching many Americans. By the time Mel Gibson made his drunken anti-Semitic rant, a good number of Americans were coming to see that an Israeli-driven blood-bath was being perpetrated in the Middle East and American Jews were providing cover, even defending it. In a sense, as Israeli atrocities escalated, someone was bound to decry it. And it came in the form of a drunken Mel Gibson. And the media seized on it.
Kinda like the emperor parading naked, his handlers looking nervously around hoping that no one breaks decorum. But a young boy is bound to speak up unless you can preempt it with a moment you can manage. Instead of a boy, a stooge, speaking what everyone dares think, but a stooge easily discredited. Archie Bunker drunk, instead of Michael Wallace stone sober. Thus the media can address the issue of the anti-Israel backlash as anti-Semitism and not the issue of Israeli genocide in Lebanon and Palestine.
Karl Rove did this with George Bush’s cocaine rap in college. Rove knew the police records would come up, so he leaked them to a reporter whom Rove knew could be discredited. St Martin’s Press published the facts in Favorite Son, Rove stepped out to reveal the JB Hatfield’s dubious past. Immediately St Martin’s Press voluntarily withdrew all copies and burned them. Bush’s arrest for cocaine possession, very likely drug dealing, and the community service he received at a time when possession of marijuana would land prison time, simply went away.
Oh, Favorite Son was republished, and the facts circulate online, but the media didn’t and doesn’t cover it. You’d think they’d like a great story. I’m always reminded of why most of TV shows are so dumb, because they make the commercials look brilliant. That is, after all, the business of televison
I am not suggesting that Mel Gibson is part of a media conspiracy. Not in the least. I am suggesting that how the media choses to shape a story, whether to tell it or not, how to tell it, is certainly conspiratorial. Conspiracy is a loaded term because it’s become a discredited term. A handful of media entities colluding to shape a story is not a conspiracy anymore than you deciding to organize a surprise birthday party for a coworker would be a conspiracy. In your case, there’s a clear common interest in keeping the party a secret and you do it. In the case of a media conglomerate owners who decide what news may or may not hurt their common friend Israel, it doesn’t take a conspiracy to agree on a common cause. Show only Israelis worrying about rocket attacks, don’t show the half million cluster bombs left in Lebanon to snare curiosity-killed toddlers.
And when there’s a undercurrent brewing up in America, bursting to decry the Israeli murderers and their apologist Jews at home, point the camera at one who’s famous, maybe mildly sympathetic, drunk of course so it’ll be forgivable and let him rant. Next in front of everyone slap his wrists to teach how unseemly it is to be brnaded anti-Semitic. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt Gibson much, remember the adage, no such thing as bad publicity. When Apocalypto comes around, Gibson’s name will still draw. And Apocalypto’s message will work even better on the dumb white supremacists who thought his rant was serious.
It’s not anti-Semitic to condemn Israel for its campaign of genocide and apartheid in Palestine and Lebanon. It’s not anti-Semitic to point at the Israeli influence over our government’s actions. It’s not anti-Semitic or defamatory to accuse American Jews of uncritical support of colonial Zionism. It is not a case for the Jewish Anti-Defamation League to ask the American Jews underwriting our media to stop lying to themselves and us.
I’m having a hard time reading your tone on this. Are you setting up a rhetorical straw man with your statment that the US entertainment industry is predominated by Jews? I understand, as I would hope any thinking person would, that criticizing the actions of the state of Israel by no means amounts to anti-Semitism, but if your opening statements are not meant to lure with dry irony, I’d certainly like to see it backed up with some facts. If you were merely casting a dry fly, I think it missed the water altogether.
My personal feel for all this, is simply that religious people as a whole like to always play the saint. Jews are no different about having this vice than Catholics, Protestant Evangelists, and Muslims.
What is different about the American Jewish community though, is that they have gotten away with having much of the mainly Christian Western World promote the most backward idea possible, That is that it is OK to have a religiously-based discriminatory government, and that that is something somehow progressive and democratic at the same time.
In doing this, the World Christian community has alligned itself in prejudicial alliance with mainly American Jews against World Muslims. They have allowed themselves to be coopted by the American and Israeli Jewish community into enabling ethnic cleansing, religious persecution, and mass murder and theft, all in the name supposedly of preventing such being done to the Jews once again.
Yes, certain races have been racially profiled and directed to succeed in certain endeavors, and boxed out of others. It might not be pc to mention this, but it still it remains certainly true. But those with a Christian background should not be tightlipped about mentioning today where the Jewish community has excelled and positioned itself well in. The Jewish community today cannot play the Holocaust ‘get out of jail free’ card for ever. And least of all the Christian community itself should be able to play this card.
I think this is the simple message that conservative Muslims are trying to deliver to the US. They just aren’t good at pr outside their own societies. But then again, they don’t have many posts over in LA and Hollywood as Eric pointed out. How unkosher of him to do so. That does not mean that he is a closet antiJew.
As I said, I’m not debating an intelligent person’s right to question the state of Israel’s “Apartheid,” (and all its manifold implications and complications) as Jimmy Carter not-so-delicately put it. But let’s not start equating all Jews with the state of Israel, and let’s not start Jew-baiting without facts. It condones stereotypes that dumber people like to use to justify things like the Holocaust, which wasn’t the first time the Jews were persecuted as I’m sure you’re well aware. I’ve never seen any facts that say the Jews control Hollywood or world banks or or the media any more than WASPs do. If you don’t have facts, it sounds like Jew-baiting to me.
what’s that line from the original “The Producers”
The Nazis are rounding up all the Jews, Gypsys, and Homosexuals… who’ll do theatre?
This whole Jews run Hollywood is so lame. Hollywood is a Country Club but it’s not reverse restricted.
here’s a sterotype… Only extremists ( right and left wing) are conspiracy theorists, moderate people seem not to be very paranoid.
You give me way too much credit for fly fishing or finesse. I’m certainly not above Jew-baiting. If there are American Jews who do not support Israel’s actions let them speak up! Especially if they own our media, let them speak out! Why is criticism of Israel absent in our media? Why is the power of the Israeli congressional lobby not even discussed on our networks?
Why are people being imprisoned for revisiting the official history of the Holocaust? Not just imprisoned and reviled, but blacked out completely in the press. I don’t have anything against Jewish people in the least. No one I think is suggesting that Jews again be persecuted for being money-lenders or urban landlords or non-Catholics. But if they are obstructionist offensive linemen for Zionist genocide, I do condemn them.
You are correct, I should do more homework. As perhaps you should open your eyes if you’ve never seen any facts of the Rothschild/bourgeois legacy. And why do you put “Apartheid” in quotes? Non-Jews are second class citizens in Israel and of course the occupied Palestinians are untouchable. Your qualifying the word Apartheid reminds me of the criticism leveled at Jimmy Carter’s use of the term to title his new book. The criticisms were led by Jewish Zionist apologists and amplified for some odd reason by every major news outlet. You need to get beyond what American media is reporting to you.
My recent Jewish train of thought might have been too heavily influenced by Adam Sandler’s Hannukah Song redux, but I’ll bet you the farm he’s on the right track. Meanwhile, I will bait everyone who is aiding Israel’s crimes.
Does a bear shit in the woods? Show us the shit!
I don’t quite understand what you are talking about when you allude to ‘the facts of the Rothschild/bourgeois legacy’, Eric?
My own position is simply that the Jewish community is not the major player in our Western World, but rather that the Christian churches are, as they have been in that role for centuries. It is important to know which Western religion is the horse and which is the tail.
When you mention Rothschild, this history doesn’t detract from the reality that financial capital in the Western World is principally controlled by those who claim to be Christians. Always has been this way, too. The Jewish community are very, very minor players within the banking community, Greenspan be damned. Likewise, the Jewish community is a very minor player in the Western world’s political community, too. Kissinger be damned.
We should never be misguided so as to believe that Blacks, Hispanics, or Jews are major players just because some of them have achieved high positions in the Western World. By and large, White First World ‘Christians’ run the world. Most of them English speaking these days.
I put it in quotes, Eric, because I was quoting the title of Jimmy Carter’s book. I think he’s right to call it an apartheid. While I’m not a middle-eastern scholar, nor do I have the time to explore every facet of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I try to understand the situation as well as I can and I sympathize deeply with the Palestinians. But I don’t blame the Jews. I may place a fair share of the burden on U.S. middle-eastern foreign policy and on Israel’s inflexible conservative factions, but it’s not like I don’t feel like I’ve had access to plenty of facts on both sides of the debate, and it’s amazingly complex and sad in many ways. I knew many Jews when I lived in San Francisco who were completely sympathetic to the Palestinians, even activists for them. All I’m saying is that factless Jew-baiting as a way of grabbing attention is unethical, lazy and distracts from your arguments. If you’re talking about the Rothschild’s being major players in international finance for centuries and being major propoents of Zionism, so what? The US is as much of an occupied territory under the mantle of Manifest Destiny, and we can talk about the Rockefellers and myriad other WASP capitalists and industrialists who made it happen. I mean, where’d your money come from? But if you’re going down conspiracy lane with your finger pointing at the Jews for all the woes of the world, then then you’d better have facts or we might as well roll out The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I’m not saying there isn’t a complicity between the U.S. and Israel that plays out as propaganda in the media. Our nations are political allies and that’s the lens through which we’re asked and told to see the world. But that doesn’t mean there’s a sinister media conspiracy. We still have access to an incredible diversity of information, this blog being one of them. Let’s make sure the information is credible and as fact-based as possible when it asserts statements that make claim to the truth.
Well said, and thank you for making your argument clear: to criticize Jews is to blame them for all the woes of the world. Nonsense. Who is saying that? Your ploy is like accusing chemists who question the conflicting evidence of Holocaust lore, or Arab/Muslims who question why the Nazi persecution of the Jews should justify making a Jewish state out of Palestinian lands, of denying the Holocaust!
It’s not what any of us are saying, and damn your ugly rhetorical lie.
I’m thrilled to hear your account of conscientious Jews. Of course there are Reformed Jews and there should be plenty. My point? Why are their voices not heard in the media? We’re not talking radical anti-war sentiments, we’re talking about American opinion of Israel about which most Americans are not particularly partial. Why?
Tony was of course quite right to upbraid me, but you are both distracted by the lack of proportion. Jews are not the majority anywhere, how could they be? But their authority is disproportionate. And since before business was Rennaissanced Jews have been the money lenders, and could not be the front men. The traders, financiers and bankers were Christians, and are mostly still, but whose money are they playing with? The Inquisition was after Jewish money, Hitler was after their money. The Swiss tried to keep their posthumous bank accounts. Any business person can tell you money’s in the percentage. Who are some of the wealthiest players in Hollywood? Who collects the 10%? Still, it’s just conjecture.
I’m a Catholic. To tell you the truth, if someone was to ask why all Catholics are such uncaring crusading warmongers, I’d applaud it. I don’t know why the fuck there are Catholic bishops supporting Bush. And I certainly am not doing my share to hang our Bishop by his testicles. Let critics say it. Catholics are remiss.
But let me be clear. I’m not saying all Jews are callous Zionist Salomes. I am saying that God Damn Jews in New York and in Hollywood, in collusion with some very daft Evangelical Judaica-fetishist chosen-people wanna-bes, in collusion with Wasp war profiteers, are for profoundly criminal reasons distorting our perception of the Middle East, the center of the storm being, as it has been since 1918, Israeli Zionism.
I’ll add, that you do make very good points, and I will try to construct my arguments more carefully. I do know there is a larger game afoot in the Middle East, since before the religious conflict, and it is of course about oil. But I think if we can unmask Israel’s pretext in Arabia, we will better be able to challenge the West’s own inappropriate machinations.
Points all well taken Eric.
Here is some belated research, circa 2003, about the Jewish religious affiliation of media power brokers. It is an incomplete list compiled by Jeffrey Blankfort of 100777.com, admittedly anti-Zionist, but who else dares publish such information? If it is in error, please let me know.
MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN, owner of NY Daily News, US News & World Report and chair of th! e Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, one of the largest pro-Israel lobbying groups.
LESLIE MOONVES, president of CBS television, great-nephew of David Ben-Gurion, and co-chair with Norman Ornstein of the Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligation of Digital TV Producers, appointed by Clinton.
JONATHAN MILLER, chair and CEO of AOL division of AOL-Time-Warner
NEIL SHAPIRO, president of NBC News
JEFF GASPIN, Executive Vice-President, Programming, NBC
DAVID WESTIN, president of ABC News
SUMNER REDSTONE, CEO of Viacom, “world’s biggest media giant” (Economist, 11/23/2) owns Viacom cable, CBS and MTVs all over the world, Blockbuster video rentals and Black Entertainment TV.
MICHAEL EISNER, major owner of Walt Disney, Capitol Cities, ABC.
RUPERT MURDOCH, Owner Fox TV, New York Post, London Times, News of the World (Jewish mother)
MEL KARMAZIN, president of CBS
DON HEWITT, Exec. Director, 60 Minutes, CBS
JEFF FAGER, Exec. Director, 60 Minutes II. CBS
DAVID POLTRACK, Executive Vice-President, Research and Planning, CBS
SANDY KRUSHOW, Chair, Fox Entertainment
LLOYD BRAUN, Chair, ABC Entertainment
BARRY MEYER, chair, Warner Bros.
SHERRY LANSING, President of Paramount Communications and Chairman of Paramount Pictures’ Motion Picture Group.
HARVEY WEINSTEIN, CEO. Miramax Films.
BRAD SIEGEL, President, Turner Entertainment.
PETER CHERNIN, second in-command at Rupert Murdoch’s News. Corp., owner of Fox TV
MARTY PERETZ, owner and publisher of the New Republic, which openly identifies itself as pro-Israel. Al Gore credits Marty with being his “mentor.”
ARTHUR O. SULZBERGER, JR., publisher of the NY Times, the Boston Globe and other publications.
WILLIAM SAFIRE, syndicated columnist for the NYT.
TOM FRIEDMAN, syndicated columnist for the NYT.
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, syndicated columnist for the Washington Post. Honored by Honest Reporting.com, website monitoring “anti-Israel media.”
RICHARD COHEN, syndicated columnist for the Washington Post
JEFF JACOBY, syndicated columnist for the Boston Globe
NORMAN ORNSTEIN, American Enterprise Inst., regular columnist for USA Today, news analyst for CBS, and co-chair with Leslie Moonves of the Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligation of Digital TV Producers, appointed by Clinton.
STEPHEN EMERSON, every media outlet’s first choice as an expert on domestic terrorism.
DAVID SCHNEIDERMAN, owner of the Village Voice and the New Times network of “alternative weeklies.” DENNIS LEIBOWITZ, head of Act II Partners, a media hedge fund
KENNETH POLLACK, for CIA analysts, director of Saban Center for Middle East Policy, writes op-eds in NY Times, New Yorker
BARRY DILLER, chair of USA Interactive, former owner of Universal Entertainment
KENNETH ROTH, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch
RICHARD LEIBNER, runs the N.S. Bienstock talent agency, which represents 600 news personalities such as Dan Rather, Dianne Sawyer and Bill O’Reilly.
TERRY SEMEL, CEO, Yahoo, former chair, Warner Bros.
MARK GOLIN, VP and Creative Director, AOL
WARREN LIEBERFORD, Pres., Warner Bros. Home Video Div. of AOL- TimeWarner
JEFFREY ZUCKER, President of NBC Entertainment
JACK MYERS, NBC, chief.NYT 5.14.2
SANDY GRUSHOW, chair of Fox Entertainment
GAIL BERMAN, president of Fox Entertainment
STEPHEN SPIELBERG, co-owner of Dreamworks
JEFFREY KATZENBERG, co-owner of Dreamworks
DAVID GEFFEN, co-owner of Dreamworks
LLYOD BRAUN, chair of ABC Entertainment
JORDAN LEVIN, president of Warner Bros. Entertainment
MAX MUTCHNICK, co-executive producer of NBC’s “Good Morning Miami”
DAVID KOHAN, co-executive producer of NBC’s “Good Morning Miami”
HOWARD STRINGER, chief of Sony Corp. of America
AMY PASCAL, chair of Columbia Pictures
JOEL KLEIN, chair and CEO of Bertelsmann’s American operations
ROBERT SILLERMAN, founder of Clear Channel Communications
BRIAN GRADEN, president of MTV entertainment
IVAN SEIDENBERG, CEO of Verizon Communications
WOLF BLITZER, host of CNN’s Late Edition
LARRY KING, host of Larry King Live
TED KOPPEL, host of ABC’s Nightline
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN Reporter
PAULA ZAHN, CNN Host
MIKE WALLACE, Host of CBS, 60 Minutes
BARBARA WALTERS, Host, ABC’s 20-20
MICHAEL LEDEEN, editor of National Review
BRUCE NUSSBAUM, editorial page editor, Business Week
DONALD GRAHAM, Chair and CEO of Newsweek and Washington Post, son of…
CATHERINE GRAHAM MEYER, former owner of the Washington Post
HOWARD FINEMAN, Chief Political Columnist, Newsweek
WILLIAM KRISTOL, Editor, Weekly Standard, Exec. Director Project for a New American Century (PNAC)
RON ROSENTHAL, Managing Editor, San Francisco Chronicle
PHIL BRONSTEIN, Executive Editor, San Francisco Chronicle,
RON OWENS, Talk Show Host, KGO (ABC-Capitol Cities, San Francisco)
JOHN ROTHMAN, Talk Show Host, KGO (ABC-Capitol Cities, San Francisco)
MICHAEL SAVAGE, Talk Show Host, KFSO (ABC-Capitol Cities, San Francisco) Syndicated in 100 markets
MICHAEL MEDVED, Talk Show Host, on 124 AM stations
DENNIS PRAGER, Talk Show Host, nationally syndicated from LA. Has Israeli flag on his home page.
BEN WATTENBERG, Moderator, PBS Think Tank.
ANDREW LACK, president of NBC
DANIEL MENAKER, Executive Director, Harper Collins
DAVID REZNIK, Editor, The New Yorker
NICHOLAS LEHMANN, writer, the New York
HENRICK HERTZBERG, Talk of the Town editor, The New Yorker
SAMUEL NEWHOUSE JR, and DONALD NEWHOUSE own Newhouse Publications, includes 26 newspapers in 22 cities; the Conde Nast magazine group, includes The New Yorker; Parade, the Sunday newspaper supplement; American City Business Journals, business newspapers published in more than 30 major cities in America; and interests in cable television programming and cable systems serving 1 million homes.
DONALD NEWHOUSE, chairman of the board of directors, Associated Press.
PETER R KANN, CEO, Wall Street Journal, Barron’s
RALPH J. & BRIAN ROBERTS, Owners, Comcast-ATT Cable TV.
LAWRENCE KIRSHBAUM, CEO, AOL-Time Warner Book Group
Or, if you prefer a more concise report from John Whitley of Rense.com
http://rense.com/general44/sevenjewishamericans.htm
Today, seven Jewish Americans run the vast majority of US television networks, the printed press, the Hollywood movie industry, the book publishing industry, and the recording industry. Most of these industries are bundled into huge media conglomerates run by the following seven individuals:
Gerald Levin, CEO and Director of AOL Time Warner
Michael Eisner, Chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company
Edgar Bronfman, Sr., Chairman of Seagram Company Ltd
Edgar Bronfman, Jr, President and CEO of Seagram Company Ltd and head of Universal Studios
Sumner Redstone, Chairman and CEO of Viacom, Inc
Dennis Dammerman, Vice Chairman of General Electric
Peter Chernin, President and Co-COO of News Corporation Limited
Those seven Jewish men collectively control ABC, NBC, CBS, the Turner Broadcasting System, CNN, MTV, Universal Studios, MCA Records, Geffen Records, DGC Records, GRP Records, Rising Tide Records, Curb/Universal Records, and Interscope Records.
Most of the larger independent newspapers are owned by Jewish interests as well. An example is media mogul is Samuel I. “Si” Newhouse, who owns two dozen daily newspapers from Staten Island to Oregon, plus the Sunday supplement Parade; the Conde Nast collection of magazines, including Vogue, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Allure, GQ, and Self; the publishing firms of Random House, Knopf, Crown, and Ballantine, among other imprints; and cable franchises with over one million subscribers.
I could add that Michael Eisner could depart Disney tomorrow but the company will remain in the hands of Shamrock Holdings, whose principal office is now located in Israel.