"No Arab culture, no Israeli culture, no culture at all."
356617
"The Band's Visit" is 87 minutes of perfection from writer/director Eran Kolirin.  There's little dialogue, accounting in part to language barriers, but more due to the dearth of things to talk about in the forgotten outpost of Beit Hatikva.  Moreover, its residents seem talked-out and beaten down.  Beautiful but weary Dina (the wonderful Ronit Elkabetz) nails the essence of the town's residents when she says that their misdirected Arab guests - looking for the Arab Culture Center - will find "No Arab culture, no Israeli culture, no culture at all."

I'm struck by how Kolirin makes those few words matter so much.  Over a dozen scenes are stuck permanently in my head a full month or more after our viewing.  Two scenes in particular stand out:

- An indescribably well-played wordless piece where jazz hipster Haled (Saleh Bakri) leads an inept Papi (Shlomi Avraham) through his first encounter with a girl.  Brilliant direction here by Kolirin.

- A brilliant scene in which band director Tawfiq (regally portrayed by Sasson Gabai) reluctantly reveals the reason behind his romantic reticence.  The core of the scene - when Tawfiq says "You are a good woman, Dina, I am sure of it" - elicts a reaction from Ms. Elkabetz bemoaning a life spent worrying about silly things that don't matter now.  It's stirring cinema.

So, now we add "The Band's Visit" to my growing list of Israeli films you must see:

<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Syrian-Bride/dp/B000EHQ7JC/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Syrian Bride</a>
<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Time-of-Favor/dp/B0000694XO/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Time of Favor</a>
<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Bonjour-Monsieur-Shlomi/dp/B0006A9GCM/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi</a>
<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Broken-Wings/dp/B000255L98/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Broken Wings</a>
<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Late-Marriage/dp/B00008H2NK/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Late Marriage</a>&nbsp;- Lior Ashkenazi & Ronit Elkabetz!!
<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Walk-on-Water/dp/B0009YVBGO/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Walk on Water</a>
<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Yana-s-Friends/dp/B00007JZV7/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Yana's Friends</a>
1156549
I have no interest investigating the quotations and footnotes quoted in this book (though the sources are included in the backmatter).  that being said, the author's premise that the Arab world is attempting to delegitimize the "jewishness" of the area known as Israel seems plausible.
1364268
Horrible book. I spent two years working in Saudi Arabia, and this story seems to be written by someone with an innate dislike of Arabs. I found the  tone of the book insulting and demeaning to Arabs, and especially Saudi Arabians. Unfortunately, may Americans have the same stereotyped idea of what Saudi Arabia and its people are like. The ending (oh, no, wait, the whole book) was awful--like a sloppily scripted B movie. The authors should be ashamed of themselves.
2453027
The only thing I rate here is the editorial review.  I HATED that, and I won't buy the book for that reason.  What reason?  Describing the cause of the numbers of Jews' dwindling as "interbreeding" rather than "intermarrying" (and changing religions).  We are ONE "breed," one "race" called the HUMAN race.  The people of Kerala have not lost numbers, the Jews haven't gone away; they've just stopped calling themselves "Jews" even though, beyond history and dogma, that's just an arbitrary, made-up distinction.  There are no more "Chosen" people than there are "Rejected" people.  There are only PEOPLE.
1268148
"This book shows absolutely no understanding of South Africa's history and economic institutions. In particular, Williams conveniently ignores the role capitalists played in constructing the racist institutions in South Africa in his attempt to portray apartheid as anti-capitalist. One of the most biased interpretations of South African history in existence (rivaled only by the work of W. H. Hutt). Recommended only for conservatives who don't want their view of reality cluttered with actual facts."

You're damn right that early "capitalists" supported the apartheid regime, but only because they didn't want black people to have the economic freedom that the whites did.  It's called an unequal distribution of capitalism.  The whites had capitalism in South Africa, whereas the blacks had socialism.  You forget that capitalism is an economic system, not a type of person (unless they believe in that system).  The apartheid regime was socialist and against capitalism, because it denied blacks the right to own property and intervened in order to help out special interests.  It's kind of like how many regulations ultimately help big businesses and corporations by squashing mom and pop stores.
2630050
I have read, enjoyed and even highly recommended Shinn's other Angel-series books to others.  So, I was stunned by how dreadful this one was.  In past novels Shinn thinly veiled two of her planet's tribes -- one group were obviously arabs, and another group gypsy/jews.  This novel tells the stories of two young women, one who is suppressed and almost killed by the arab-look-alikes, and the other who finds redemption in the arms of a jew-look-alike.  The former is presented as a one-sided, nightmarish, diatribe against everything Arab you can imagine.  The men are fat, greedy, self-centered, and oppressive.  The women are denied basic human rights, confined to harem-like areas, hidden beyond veils, stoned to death if they disobey. Shinn obviously has a complete lack of respect for cultures other than her own.  Rather than using fiction to bring insight into our own world, she uses it to spread bigotry.  In this age of global conflict, we need and deserve greater knowledge, not kneejerk, uneducated passions.
2270849
Within the first few moments of the film when I heard the words "occupation/occupiers" I had the wisdom to know that this was going to be at the least bias and at the worst anti-Jew anti-Israel.  The only illegal occupiers of the land are the Arabs.  I'm not going to waste my time with a long, drawn out review.  I'd suggest another video entitled, "The Forgotten Refugees."
639048
First of all, nearly every 5-star review looks like a fake designed to drive up the book's ratings: a few perfunctory words about "threats to our freedom" and nothing else. Secondly, this slim book isn't even about ISIS. It's primarily about Hamas, a problem the Israelis themselves created.

In 2009 the Wall Street Journal quoted retired Israeli official Avner Cohen: "Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation." A Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades, responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.

Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas.

Jay Sekulow is a Christian Zionist and a mouthpiece for the apartheid state of Israel. If only American Christians knew just how much the ultra-Zionist Jews view them with contempt (I'm NOT referring to the vast majority of moderate Jews, or the ultra-orthodox Jews who argue that Zionism is a corruption of Jewish teachings). These political Zionists are glad to take support from Christians, but privately view them as "Goyim," who exist only to serve the Jews. It's a propaganda triumph without equal: they've convinced millions of American Christians that they must support everything the state of Israel does.
2666720
These early 20th Century Spanish language swanks were written by a magazine write. The linguistic culture here is that of supraregional magazine writing. It corresponds exactly to the light journalistic culture of Anglo-American comic magazine writing. It is not "spoken Mexican Spanish", and the events and characterizations could have been invented by a complete outsider to the culture. They are generic and demonstrate no particular familiarity with the situations of the protagonists. This is the sort of thing that would wind up dominating television in both cultures. There is nothing folkloristic or insightful about it.

It's said that this has some sort of historical significance for "Chicano literature". I'm in no position to argue that point, but, if it's true in some deep sense, so much the worse for "Chicano literature".

This book may be of some value if you're interested in the history of mass culture. Otherwise, it's worthless.
2253438
Pappe is an anachronistic stalinist who has made a career out of his sensationalist anti-Zionist viewpoint. His opinion is so one-sided and obvious in its bias, it serves no purpose at all for serious study of the issues - just warms the hearts of Israel's sworn enemies...as if peace can be achieved by rooting for the destruction of one side...pure rubbish ...
2444951
This book quotes Albert Memmi but doesnt seem to have read his other essay "who is a Jewish Arab?" which explains the ill treatment and colonializing of North Africa by Arabs and suppression of the antive Jewish minority who lived there, Memmi being one of them.

Israel is indeed a nation of immigrants.  However it is not like South Africa or Australia or Algeria.  In South Africa a white minority dominated an African majority using race laws.  In Australia the european immigrants came to outnnumber and mostly exterminate the local inhabitants.  In Algeria he French colonists eventually left.  Israel may have similar themes to all three but it is not similar completely to any of these situations.  The Palestinians, unlike the American Indian or Aboriginal, was not decimited by warfare or Disease. In 1947 there were 1.2 million Palestinians, today their are 9 million.  The Palestinian Arab is also not the majority in Israel and he is no subject to race laws because he is not a seperate race from many of the Jews who are themselves of Arab/North African descent like Albert Memmi.  Perhaps aspects of the settler society of the West Bank has comparisons to Algeria but behind the Green Line the situation is 100% different.  THis model of using other situations, such as 'Apartheid' and words like 'racialization' do no justice to the issues in Israel and Palestine, instead they degrade the actual facts and history in order to lend themselves to propoganda.  Rather than analyzing honestly how Israel fits in it simply adds hate to the fire.  One might recall that in 1944 Konigsberg was 100% German and after 1947 was 100% Russian.  But this is not readily called a case of ethnic cleansing and aparthied.  Sometimes populations change and it has very little to do with colonialism.  After all Israel was colonized by the English.

A problematic account.

Seth J. Frantzman
1395645
The Little Drummer Girl has one glaring deficiency: the basis upon which the story rests is false.

The novel's antagonist, named Khalil, is a 'Palestinian' freedom fighter who doesn't want the 'Palestinian People' to wait 2,000 years, like the Jews waited, for the restoration of their 'homeland'. Khalil runs a highly effective terrorist network that bombs Israeli targets throughout Europe in order to advertise the 'Palestinian' cause.

John le Carr bases his story on the false historical claim that there is such an ethnic group called the 'Palestinians'. The only 'Palestinians' to have existed were citizens of the 1922 League of Nations' 'Mandate for Palestine', the Jewish Homeland. The term 'Palestinian' was only used for legal purposes to describe those living in the Jewish Homeland between 1922-1948. As such, Jews were also defined as 'Palestinians'. When Israel became a state in 1948 (changing its name from Palestine to Israel. The name Palestine was given to the territory in 135 AD by Emperor Hadrian as an insult to the Jews, who had just revolted against Roman rule for a second time. Palestine is the Romanized version of the name Philistine, the land of Israel's ancient enemies), the term 'Palestinian' became defunct, but was then co-opted by Arab governments and used to fool ignorant observers that the 'Palestinians' had lost their land to the Jews. John le Carr presents the 'Palestinians' as an actual ethnic group with justified land claims against the Jewish state, when in fact there never was a 'Palestinian' ethnic group present in the Middle East. And here's the proof of the Arab governments' lie: Unless those who take the anti-Israeli side in this discussion can produce what should be the easy to find documents from the early 1920s where the 'Palestinian People' are demanding their state and being denied their demands by the League of Nations, then you have just proved to yourselves that the 'distinct Palestinian People' canard is just that-a canard.

The Little Drummer Girl does have one saving grace, however, and that revolves around the Mossad recruitment of 'Charlie', an unknown actress with Vanessa Redgrave-like politics. Due to the latest bombing by Khalil of an Israeli target in Bad Godesberg, the Mossad must quickly neutralize Khalil and his network or else the politicians in Israel and the IDF will take matters into their own hands, which means indiscriminate reprisal attacks on Arab (not 'Palestinian') refugee camps, resulting in the deaths of women and children and another black eye for Israel in the court of world opinion.

On the trail of the elusive Khalil is the Mossad's best operative-Kurtz, and his Mossad team. Kurtz's plan: use Charlie to infiltrate Khalil's network and hope to luck that once inside Khalil can be found.
3046759
Reading this book made me repeatedly look into its description as factual. I have seen fewer baseless claims made in vampire fantasy novels than in this book. The people of "Palestine" are simply the unwanted refugees from Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern Islamic regimes that have no desire to provide them with land. The Jewish people have a historical and factual claim to Israel, and the United States and Great Britain were merely supporters of their nation when they needed and DESERVED it the most. The so called "Palestinians" never went through a Holocaust, nor endured thousands of years of hatred and oppression from most of the rest of the world. In spite of that oppression, the Jewish people thrived and waited for the rebirth of the nation of Israel. If the "Palestinians" want and deserve their own nation, they should contribute to the worlds betterment with scientific advances and ethical and moral leadership.

As to influencing American government, the Jewish people have less say than the majority of the minorities in America today. This book is a waste of time, and would go in the same trash pile as the "Protocols of the elders of Zion."
1963612
This is yet another example of a completely biased view of the israeli/arab conflict. The movie claims that the wall is a barrier to peace and a land grab etc, it however does not mention the motivations for the barrier. There have been countless terrorist attacks into Israel over the past 40 years. The nature and extent of these attacks are gruesome and I dount any country faced with this on a daily basis would do anything less than build a wall (and probably do a lot more).
Israel, just like any other sovereign country, has a right to defend itself and the wall is completely justified. There has never been a state of palestine and so the claims that this is a land grab are complete fabrications.
763149
Dr. Raheb, who never seems to tire from bashing Jews and Israel - having published 16 books "under occupation" now tells of his new look theology. Replacement Theology, so cherished by Protestants of old (and the Nazi party) has now morphed into genetic denial. Modern Jewry are simply descendants  of an East European tribe who converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages. They have no claim to the Old Testament, the Holy Temple, to the land itself. And the Middle East conflict is treated as a passion / morality play with the Empire (Israel) and the Palestinains (Christ on the cross) - no mention of Arab intransigence, terrorism, corruption, intolerance.
So Dr. Raheb calls it "faith". To me it looks like pure hatred shrouded in neo-theological terms.
1266803
Full disclosure: I'm not Jewish and due to the fact that I've spent my entire life in the very rural deep south, I haven't had the opportunity to hang out with many Jewish people. That being said, I am also an historian who has researched and written a great deal about the world's religions, both in the medieval era, and after the Renaissance up to present day. As well as how those religious beliefs shaped our history. So, it is with complete confidence that I can say the author has no freaking idea what Jewish culture really looks like. The idea that a sheetlike cloth with a whole in it must be for Jewish people to have sex without seeing each other naked is not only ludicrous, but smacks of ignorance, bigotry and prejudice. The people who saw their Jewish neighbors hanging something with a hole in it on a clothesline, and thought, the only explanation for it must be something Jews use to have sex. The object in question is called a  tallit katan and it goes over the head (the one on your shoulders, not the one on your penis). Over the centuries this myth has become so pervasive mostly due to  the eons-long prejudice against Jews. Of course, had the people simply asked their Jewish neighbors what the purpose of the tallit katan was we never would have bought into this absurd myth in the first place. Because the author got this story so very wrong I'm forced to conclude that the rest of her supposed knowledge is just as unreliable and she sucks at research.
2403542
The ratio of propaganda to useful information and entertainment here is way too high. Now, I realized going in that there was inevitably going to be some. At first, I figured it would be confined to the lengthy biography and interview at the beginning, but no...about 2/3 of this is pushing Netanyahu and his policies with very little time spent on Israeli landmarks or history. And obviously, given the nature of the piece, don't expect anything close to a balanced view of what history there is.

I'm actually sympathetic to Israel politically, but this just wasn't worth the time spent watching it.