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Bashir Is Deceitful Propaganda

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Feb 21, 2009 5:09 PM CST

(Newser) – Waltz With Bashir is a beautifully made movie, and Gideon Levy will be rooting for writer/director Ari Folman to win the first Israeli Oscar tomorrow night, along with the rest of the country. “However, it must also be noted that the film is infuriating, disturbing outrageous, and deceptive,” he writes in Haaretz. “This is not an antiwar film. It is propaganda. Stylish, sophisticated, gifted, and tasteful—but propaganda.”

Note that Folman didn’t mention the then-raging Gaza war in his Golden Globes acceptance speech—little surprise, considering that it took the former soldier two dozen years to make this film about the Lebanon war. It’s an infuriating pro-Israel movie, resting on what Levy calls the “we shot and we cried” syndrome. The Israelis are sensitive, they go to therapy, the Nazis made them do it. The blood—that cartoon blood—isn’t on their hands.

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In this image released by Sony Pictures Classics, a scene is shown from the animated film, "Waltz With Bashir." (AP Photo/Sony Pictures Classics)

Director Ari Folman poses with the foreign language film award for the Israeli film 'Waltz with Bashir' backstage at the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Writer/director/producer Ari Folman accepts the award for Best Foreign Language Film for "Waltz With Bashir" during the Golden Globes Awards, Jan. 11, 2009. (AP Photo/NBC, Paul Drinkwater)

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A trailer for the film in question. (YouTube)

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This is not an antiwar film, nor even a critical work about Israel as militarist and occupier. It is an act of fraud and deceit, intended to allow us to pat ourselves on the back, to tell us and the world how lovely we are.
- Gideon Levy

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