SRI LANKAN SINHALESE ARMIES KILL 10 TAMIL TRIBESMEN
Mr.Death-By-Diversity...
...Says, "Hello, my brothers."...Says, "Hello, my brothers."BEIRUT. With aliens poised to extinguish mankind in the film "IndependenceDay," the president of the United States declares Earth "unitedin our common interest" to survive. "We can't be consumed by ourpetty differences anymore," actor Bill Pullman says in the movie'sclimactic speech.
Evidently he is not much acquainted with the Middle East. In Lebanon, theAmerican science-fiction hit has been censored, for a second time, and nowfaces demands for a complete ban because the character who saves the planet- computer scientist David Levinson, played by Jeff Goldblum - is a Jew.
Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim political movement and militia with strongties to Iran, has been loudest in denouncing the film, which plays in Lebanonwith subtitles in Arabic and French. A few days ago Hezbollah issued a statementcalling Roland Emmerich's thriller "propaganda for the so-called geniusof the Jews and their concern for humanity." Even at East Beirut'supscale Empire theater, where a more Westernized crowd of mostly Christianviewers is flocking to see the film, many moviegoers are coming away annoyed.In a country that fought a 17-year civil war among Sunni and Shiite Muslims,Maronite and Orthodox Christians, and Druze, not to mention Palestinians,nearly everyone seems to note at once that the Jew and the black man, aMarine pilot played by Will Smith, are the heroes, while white and presumablygentile men play a drunken crop-duster and a bad-guy defense secretary inimportant supporting roles.
"Artistically it was a very good film," said Marwan Slim, 31,an entrepreneur. "But it's an insult to the American people, the ideathat the salvation of America is a Jew, and the traitor to America is awhite man. It's this Jewish notion of God's chosen people." "Weall know that Hollywood is very pro-Jewish," said Joe Takla, 29, whoraises honeybees. "They didn't give (Steven) Spielberg the Oscar untilhe did `Schindler's List.' " In "Independence Day" as shownin Beirut, Lebanese censors removed a good deal before the Interior Ministry'sPublic Security Department approved it for distribution. Gone is the scenein which Goldblum's on-screen father, Judd Hirsch, dons a skullcap and leadsa group of White House aides and soldiers in a Hebrew prayer for mercy.
Gone, too, is the fleeting footage of Israeli troops working side by sidewith Arabs in a desert redoubt.
"Of course it has been cut," said Khalil Khoury, the Empire'smanager. "They had to cut all the Jewish pictures." Film censorshipis nothing new in Lebanon, nor is it limited to things Jewish. "Striptease,"also playing at the Empire, is shown without most of Demi Moore's marqueeattractions. Even on-screen kisses that last too long are sometimes knownto disappear.
Independence Day
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