Bowling For Palestine
By Irwin N. Graulich (01/06/05)
Why did Chairman Yasser Arafat invest Palestinian funds in a bowling alley in Manhattan? Palestinian activist filmmaker Mohammed Moore seeks to explain this controversy in his newly released documentary, "Bowling For Palestine."
The Arab-Israeli conflict is notorious for its extreme violence and the number of people killed with firearms and bombs. With his signature sense of angry humor, the scraggily bearded, overweight Moore sets out to explain the roots of this bloodshed. In doing so, he learns that the conventional answers of easy availability of guns, violent entertainment and poverty are inadequate explanations, since other cultures share those factors without the equivalent carnage or controversy.
The film proves that Palestinian Arabs have been killed way out of proportion to Palestinian Jews, with an estimated ratio of 3000 to 1000 during the latest Intifada war. However, during the Gulf War in 1991, the casualty ratio was approximately 100,000 Iraqis to 148 Americans, proving that morality has nothing to do with numbers.
And why is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the most talked about, most cared about, most covered news event in the world? There have been endless larger tragedies including Rwanda with 300,000 dead, Sudan with over one million dead, and other conflicts with much greater carnage such as India/Pakistan, Burundi, Indonesia, Congo, Somalia, Russia/Chechnya, Philippines, China/Tibet and Algeria. Yet, The New York Times, The BBC, Le Monde, CNN and virtually every world media outlet seems obsessed with Israel's deeds, relegating all other hostilities to the back pages or a mere asterisk.
In order to arrive at a possible explanation, Mohammed Moore takes on a deeper examination of the Jewish and Muslim cultures, exploring its fears, bigotries and violence. Furthermore, the filmmaker seeks to confront the powerful elite political and corporate interests fanning Jewish culture for their own unscrupulous gains.
Through a corporate holding company he created in Ramallah called Onyx Funds, Arafat invested Palestinian Authority money in the New York based Strike Holdings, owner of Bowlmor Lanes located in fashionable Greenwich Village. The profits from the exorbitant $8.00 per game charges and $4.00 for shoes went to pay for Suha Arafat's Paris apartment and shopping sprees along the Champs Elysee.
Moore makes a clear case that negotiations, a road map and land for peace will simply not work because pre 1967, the Arab populations owned all of Old Jerusalem, the entire West Bank and Gaza. Indeed, that was the time with most tension between Israel and its neighbors. Therefore, it is clear that the Jews are troublemakers and must leave all of the land or be pushed into the sea, just like the ancient Egyptians unsuccessfully attempted. Moore facetiously brings up the biblical point that perhaps their God will split the sea for them once again.
The controversial director, now famous for trading in his kafiya for a despicable American baseball cap, explores the almost 60 year old Palestinian refugee crisis. How is it possible that Israel, to this day, controls the refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan? The Jews have not permitted those Palestinian Arabs to assimilate into similar cultures, even though there exists a totally common heritage, language, culture and religion.
Mohammed investigates the controversial gun control issue by going to the home of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a man with a long history of war and fighting. It is no wonder that Israelis are so violent when their present leader, who singlehandedly defeated the entire Egyptian army in 1967, was born to fight. Again Moore proves it is not the fault of those disgusting imported American movies, MTV and the gyrations of rock stars that have made the Jews so violent.
Filmmaker Moore's visit to American Abrams Tank manufacturer, General Dynamics Corporation shows the truth behind the Jewish conspiracy to control the world. This killing machine company was taken public by "the Jews" of Wall Street. Its puppet chairman, standing in front of a
M1/A1 tank says, "We are doing nothing wrong." Creatively edited into this interview are images of Israeli tanks rolling into West Bank and Gaza towns pointed at "children."
"Bowling For Palestine" portrays the bloody history of the Jews with Pharaoh, Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, Chmelnitzke, pogroms and Nazi Germany. How come Germany and Japan stopped their aggression, while Jews never seem to end their violence? In a recent interview, Moore is quoted as saying, "Historians will write about Jews in the same way we read about the ancient Greeks and Romans--as a warrior culture hell bent on murdering peace loving Palestinians and Muslims. They think of themselves as more civilized, but in 500 years, when all Jews are gone, historians and anthropologists will describe them as evil incarnate."
Critics of the film, especially Evangelical Christians say that the documentary shows that Palestinian Arabs clearly prefer a corrupt, evil, despicable, dishonest, terrorist leader who steals from them but stands up to the West, rather than an honest, decent, truth telling, democracy oriented leader who holds a mirror up to their faces. People do not like to be shown their flaws, weaknesses and failures.
The Palestinian people refuse to confront the fact that helpless, emaciated, Holocaust surviving Jews built an incredible state in a very short time and then beat the hell out of every macho Arab army in 4 wars. They do not want to hear that Israel is a world leader in technology and science, while the West Bank, Gaza and virtually every Arab country produce nothing. They refuse to confront the truth that Israel publishes thousands of books a year, translated into many languages, while the entire Arab and Muslim world of 56 nations write fewer books than Greece.
Filmmaker Moore dismisses these issues and instead blames the Jews, Israel's nuclear arsenal and American hegemony as the major problems in the Middle East. He is already working on his next documentary film, "Centigrade 9/11" where Moore shows unequivocally that the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington were carried out by the Mossad and CIA under the direction of the American Military Industrial complex for profits and as an excuse to invade the oil rich Middle East. The truth will set you free!
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