Hollywood to "flatter" Israel

Like it never did that before. Here's an article in the Jerusalem Post about how some agent, David Lonner, wants Hollywood to show Israel in a favourable light by way of a "trip he has organized for a distinguished delegation of film-industry elite." Now see when it all began:

Lonner, who has always felt a strong connection to Israel since he celebrated his bar-mitzva here, organized the first such trip last year, in the wake of the Second Lebanon War.

Now Israel's image certainly needed a few Hollywood style favours then.

"In the Hollywood community, there's a sense of apathy about Israel, more out of ignorance than anything else. I wanted to raise the awareness of the people I work with of what Israel really is. And in a very selfish way, there's nothing I like better than spending time in Israel," he says. "I got to bring over the greatest group of people. I wanted them to have more of a human experience than a political experience."

Funny bloke. He's Jewish, Israel has a racist law allowing him to become a citizen whilst denying that right to most non-Jewish natives and yet he feels he has to contrive a "birthright trip" (yes, he said that) in order to go there. Let's face it, most Jews, even, maybe especially, zionists, would rather live in Hollywood than Israel but read on.

Producer Nina Jacobson, who as head of Buena Vista Pictures oversaw such movies as the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and The Chronicles of Narnia, called the trip, "Israel on speed," referring to the packed five-day schedule, but said that she had learned a lot and hoped to return with her children. Both she and Lonner said that they felt many of their colleagues were simply afraid to visit and they hoped they would be able to present a more flattering image of this country once they return to Los Angeles.

Did you follow the flattering link? Did you see the definition:

1. To compliment excessively and often insincerely, especially in order to win favor.
2. To please or gratify the vanity of: "What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering" (George Bernard Shaw).
3. 1. To portray favorably: a photograph that flatters its subject.
   2. To show off becomingly or advantageously.

I suppose we should commend Ms Jacobon's honesty in calling on Hollywood to be dishonest for Israel. She is saying that she wants Hollywood to tell it, not how it is, but in a way that favours Israel in terms of image.

But David Lonner wants Israeli film to get a wider audience, of course, under false pretences. Look:

Lonner is excited by "the transformation of Israeli film" and how filmmakers have focused on "the humanistic experience. That's the thrust of how Israeli filmmakers have recalibrated their craft and put Israeli cinema where it can be noticed on a more global scale."

What "humanistic experience" is to be had in a land ruled by war criminals and a segregationist ideology?

Ach, enough of this. What is there to do for the racist war criminals of the State of Israel that Hollywood hasn't already done?