Author:Ralph Seliger
I'm currently editor of this website. I was the final editor of "Israel Horizons" in its incarnation as a print magazine from 2003 until 2011 and I edited the Meretz USA (now Partners for Progressive Israel) Blog from its inception in 2006 until 2015. I've been an active supporter of the Zionist peace camp since 1982. Among other print and online platforms which I've written for: The Forward, Tikkun, The Daily Beast, In These Times, Jewish Week, New Jersey Jewish News, Jewish Currents, Huffington Post, Dissent.
Thanks for your review. I’m British-American, and worth noting more historic Zionists are quoted than Palestinians if you’re worried there are not enough Zionists in there.
The problem is not the number of Zionists quoted; it’s in who and how you quoted them, and in the disproportionate time you spent with the right-wing settler, Yisrael Meidad. You precluded any analysis of the major differences among Zionists vis-a-vis relations with Palestinian Arabs, and the ways in which extremists on both sides — but especially Arabs attacking Jews at key moments — undermined the prospects for a peaceful and equitable resolution. Viewers of your film wouldn’t know that “Zionists” or pro-Zionists like ourselves in The Third Narrative, or in PPI for that matter, represent a very different brand of Zionism than you presented.
Hi Ralph.
Sorry you’re upset. Either at me being a “right-winger” (although I do think I am more often right than wrong) or at my time exposure. But I think being more or less 1 vs. 3 required a bit more time. Then again, in cinema, sometimes the more interesting person/narrative does get a bit more time. (BTW did I get more time?) After all, you make so much of “settlers” that perhaps I deserved it. And besides, your leftist radical extreme progressive outlook gets way to much exposure anyway. Wasn’t it Ben-Gurion who told some committee (Peel) that “the Bible is our Mandate”?
Yisrael, we clearly disagree politically, but my “upset” is not about you being in the film — you definitely represent a slice of Israel and Zionism — but that the filmmaker focused on you disproportionately to help make an anti-Zionist film. Did you not notice that it was an anti-Zionist film?