mel afraid for his life of the jews

international | miscellaneous | news report

Tuesday September 09, 2003 16:55

by mel

me gibson afriad jews will kill him

Mel Gibson Says Jews May Try to Kill Him

Gibson said: "He [his father] never denied the Holocaust. He just said there
were

fewer than six million."

Gibson accuses "modern secular Judaism" of trying "to blame

the Holocaust on the Roman Catholic Church."

By Marcus Warren in New York

Daily Telegraph, (U.K.) Sept. 9, 2003

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/09/wmel09.xml&sec
ureRefresh=true&_requestid=209725

Mel Gibson turned on critics of his film The Passion, about Jesus

Christ, over claims that it is anti-Semitic but his language has ignited

a new controversy.

The ...actor and director said he was the target of "vehement

anti-Christian sentiment" but admitted that the row over his £16 million

self-financed film was good publicity.

In one of a series of inflammatory remarks quoted in this week's "The

New Yorker," Gibson accuses "modern secular Judaism" of trying "to blame

the Holocaust on the Roman Catholic Church."

"It's a lie. And it's revisionism," said Gibson, a follower of

Traditionalist Catholicism that still performs the Latin Tridentine

mass. "And they've been working on that one for a while."

His film, due to be released next Easter but so far without a

distributor, has been described as likely to fuel "hatred, bigotry and

anti-Semitism" by the Anti-Defamation League and has been criticized by

some Roman Catholic theologians.

Its commercial appeal is also open to question as it has been shot

entirely in Latin and Aramaic, the everyday language of Jesus and his

disciples. It is unclear whether it will be subtitled.

Its director portrays himself as caught up in a huge conflict between

"big realms that are warring and battling. You stick your head up and

you get knocked," he said.

"I didn't realise it would be so vicious. The acts against this film

started early. There is vehement anti-Christian sentiment out there and

they don't want it."

Gibson is not averse to dishing out venomous attacks of his own,

however, with one target Frank Rich, a New York Times columnist, who

implied that Gibson's father was "a Holocaust denier".

"I want to kill him," Gibson said of the columnist. "I want his

intestines on a stick. I want to kill his dog."

Gibson said: "He never denied the Holocaust. He just said there were

fewer than six million."

As proof of his desire to avoid confrontation, Gibson cited his decision

to cut a scene in which Caiaphas says "his blood be on us and on our

children" soon after Pontius Pilate washes his hands of the captive

Christ.

"I wanted it in," he said. "My brother said I was wimping out if I

didn't include it. But, man, if I included that in there, they'd be

coming after me at my house. They'd come to kill me."

+++++++++++++++++++
"Many rabbis and professionals have told me recently that they fear for their
jobs should they even begin to articulate their doubts about Israeli
policy--much less give explicit support to calls for an end to the occupation."

-- Rabbi Michael Lerner
Published on Sunday, April 28, 2002 in the Los Angeles Times

======================
Confessions of a Philosopher:

It is not the case that a belief is worthy of respect, or is even interesting
merely because it is widely held, though that it is widely held may give one
food for thought. Of the religions I studied, the one I found least worthy of
intellectual respect was Judaism.