Reel Bad Arabs - Exodus 1960
In my previous 6 articles I showed that Hollywood and its Jews portray Arabs and Muslims honestly and accurately, despite the claims alleged in the YouTube video Planet of The Arabs.
Anyone who has seen the film Exodus (1960) based on the 1958 novel, Exodus, by Leon Uris, is probably quite surprised to see this particular film included as an example of Hollywood stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims.
Exodus, in its portrayal of Jews and Arabs, is arguably the most evenhanded film in history. The film is based on the events that happened on the ship Exodus in 1947 and the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. We are presented with good Jews and bad Jews, good Arabs and bad Arabs.
A clip from Exodus appears at the 5:57 mark in the video above: Sal Mineo, playing a Jewish Irgun (a radical Zionist underground network) fighter, says to his girlfriend: "Get down, there are Arabs out there." And so there are. This scene actually happened thousands of times in Israel during the fighting between Arabs and Jews shortly after the UN voted on partition. I suppose Arabs would feel better if Sal Mineo put a cowboy hat on and said, "Get down, there are Indians out there."
There are good Arabs: the mukhtar of the Arab village of Abu Yesha warns the Jews of an impending attack and saves many Jewish lives.
There are bad Jews: we see the King David Hotel blown up by Irgun members, one of whom is despised by his brother because of these kinds of attacks.
We see Jews and Arabs presented who are lifelong friends. How is this film anti-Arab? The film presents no stereotypes.
If Muslims complain that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is shown cooperating with former Nazis in attacking Jewish villages, where is the untruth? Every intelligent and well-read person knows that during World War II the Mufti was involved in recruiting Arab support for Nazi Germany [Wiki]. If anything, the film is rather lenient toward the Grand Mufti, in real life, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni was a barbaric, anti-Semitic, ignorant, brutal, savage piece of crap whose entire family should all have been gutted like fish. This film was much too nice in regard to this little cockroach.
I wish all Muslim and Arab films depicted Jews as honestly and accurately as Exodus portrays Arabs and Muslims.
Arab stereotypes? Not in this film.
This is post number 7 in the category Muslim Stereotypes.
A bit of trivia: In 1973, Sal Mineo appeared as Gamal Zaki, assistant to the president of a Middle Eastern country, who faces an assassination threat in the episode A Case of Immunity in the NBC crime drama, Columbo, starring Peter Falk. I should mention that I am surprised that Jack Shaheen, who has been collecting examples of anti-Arab sentiment in film and TV, has not complained that the name "Gamal Zaki" sounds awfully close to "camel jockey." Or is it just my ears?
