US Airways Flight 1549, Heroism & Hollywood

WHEN IS HEROISM IGNORED?

Today on the radio a New York journalist, retelling the story of Flight 1549, the downed US Airways just moments out of La Guardia airport, made a telling comment: I can't wait for the Hollywood film.

And that's the issue isn't it?

As brave as the pilot was, as wonderful a news story as the saving of 150 lives is, why is it Hollywood would look at making a film of that, when a film about the mass murder of over a thousand people - circa a third of them children - in little more than a shanty town closed off from the outside world for circa 2 years, all murdered by a nuclear power bristling with American military hardware?

Left: A true hero. Dr Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who works in Gaza City's beleaguered Shifa Hospital. Busily trying to patch-up the shattered and burnt bodies sent to him courtesy of the Israeli army, he has become an outspoken critic of the naked and illegal Israeli aggression and their targeting of innocent civilians. This enraged the Neo Cons at Fox News, who cited Gerald Steinberg from Jerusalem, alleging Gilbert's characterization of the situation in Gaza is "in the form of incitement of hatred."

Zionists have accused Dr Gilbert of mimicking Hamas's language, just as they did when Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, delivered the Vatican's toughest criticism of Israel since its offensive in the Palestinian-ruled enclave, calling Gaza a "big concentration camp." Saying someone uses "the language of Hamas" is akin to calling someone an "anti-Semite" or a "holocaust denier." All are designed to silence criticism of mass murder.

Would a film showing infants with their skin burnt off by illegally-used Israeli White Phosphorous bombs not make for intriguing viewing?

Would a film showing the heroic work of paramedics - Palestinian, Arab and European - fighting through the rubble as the Israelis fire on them be "boring?"

Or would a film showing the doctors - again, Arab and foreign volunteers - working in hospitals that are being shelled, and using almost non-existent drugs and medical supplies (as the largest depot of them is burnt to the ground by the Israelis be "dull?"

Or would a film showing the UN workers of all levels under Israeli fire in their clearly-marked convoys or shelled in their clearly marked and mapped out food and medical distribution centres be "tedious?"

Purely from the point of view of making an exciting, interesting, compelling, action-packed film with plenty of emotional moments with the suffering of families, with great heroism, with lives teetering on the edge and being saved...

Left: The very epitome of heroism. Surrounded by flames and billowing clouds of acrid smoke, a Palestinian fireman tries to put out flames in a refuge camp building, risking death from further Israeli air strikes and shelling to save as many lives and properties as he can. When he finishes his work he can look forward to scant food, the threat of instant death as he sleeps, and if he's not worrying about his family's safety surely the nightmares of burnt and dying men, women and children must haunt his very dreams.

It could be a Hollywood blockbuster with all the ingredients of geo-politics, personal suffering, death, heroism and sacrifice...

It's a winner!

The only problem for Hollywood is that the baddies of the film would be the nuclear power, American-armed bully boy of the Middle East: Zionist Israel.

Steven Spielberg made the blockbuster Munich about a handful of Israeli athletes murdered in the 70s and the Mossad group that killed those responsible (and others!).

Might we ask that an Arab (or sympathetic European) director be given the means, the backing and the freedom to make a film detailing all the above.

Right: Whilst an effort is being made, at the moment it's minnows against sharks. Not until the distribution networks are opened up to a film that deals with issues that the Hollywood grandees are uncomfortable about will a serious anti-Zionist film come about.

After all, despite the relative drama of 150 (mostly) Americans getting wet for 45 minutes, the images of badly injured Palestinian children, forced into sharing hospital beds already smeared with blood of previously badly injured (or dead!) children as the doctors cope with Israeli shelling and a truly desperate lack of medical basics would be far more cinematic and enthralling.

But no...

What am I thinking?
Left: Despite an obvious "liberal" lean (which even saw many of its denizens part of the McCarthyite anti-Communist arrests and interrogations) the Hollywood machinery has never made a Blockbuster dealing with the plight of the Palestinians and the terrorist, hateful and illegality of the tactics used by Israel. Does the racial-loyalty of the Hollywood bosses mean they leave their "liberal" credentials at the door when it comes to Israel?

I know what we need! Another Holocaust film!

After all... we really could do with another one those -- couldn't we?