Nadene Goldfoot
Vanessa Redgrave, in full Dame Vanessa Redgrave, (born January 30, 1937, London, England), British actress of stage and screen who received numerous accolades—including an Oscar, two Emmys, a Tony, and a Laurence Olivier Award—for her performances. She was also a longtime political activist, supporting the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Her film career began in earnest in 1966; within the space of two years, she appeared in four films that established her reputation as an intelligent actress with a commanding presence. The first of her six Academy Award nominations was for Morgan! (1966), her first motion picture in eight years. She then had a role in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966), a psychological mystery that became a cult favourite. Redgrave’s unbilled cameo as Anne Boleyn in A Man for All Seasons (1966) and her performance as Guinevere in Camelot (1967) further secured her status as one of the most popular and respected actresses of the era.
Vanessa is 2 1/2 years younger than myself, so we share quite a lot of the same history. How was it that she turned into such a spiteful woman towards Jews of Israel? First thing I think of is that she was born and raised in England, which was the start. England had kicked out (expulsed) all Jews from England from 1290 to 1655, allowing them to return after 365 years during the time Shakespeare wrote about a Jew not having ever known any himself. The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named
Being she was also sympathetic to the IRA, I think she simply was swayed by what was talked about, not what she read about. She was too busy with acting, memorizing lines to be an avid student of social affairs. She was for the underdog and Israel and Jews to her were the bad guys, not the underdogs. The PLO were the underdogs. She saw herself if the role of the great savior of the PLO.
For some strange reason to me, she was actively pro-PLO who were known terrorists. She attended training sessions at their camps where their attacks were staged, and she called for the total destruction of Israel; saying that "I don't think there is room for a State of Israel." She then involved herself in a few short films similar to Nazi film director Leni Riefenstahl was doing, that extolled the coming destruction of the Jewish state. She was filmed at a PLO camp dancing while holding a Kalashnikov above her head. A picture of this was circulated around the world, unavailable today.
In 1977, Redgrave produced and starred in a controversial documentary film, The Palestinian, about the activities of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). She funded the documentary by selling her house. I can't find out who wrote this film. It could have been her; obviously someone close to her.
The Anti-Defamation League's honorary chairman criticized the film,
1. Highlighting that some of the responses of the people she interviews were not translated from Arabic.
2. That the film showed children training with guns and that
3. The phrase, "Kill the enemy!" kept being repeated. The president of Actors Equity in the United States
4. Criticized the film's interview with the chairman of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, in which he said that the only solution to the Middle East problem is the liquidation of the State of Israel, and Redgrave responded with, "Certainly".
She was 40 years old by then and mature enough to know she was leading the world into hating Israel, which must have been her goal.
In June 1978, at one theater showing the film, a bomb exploded, causing damage to property, but screening of the film resumed the following day. Two months later, a JDL member was convicted of the bombing and sentenced to a three-month "thorough psychological examination" with the California Youth Authority. In a 2018 interview, Redgrave stood by her acceptance speech (which included the "Zionist hoodlums" remark) during the 1978 Academy Awards ceremony.New York Times ran an article about it. LOS ANGELES, June 15--1996—A Beverly Hills movie theater that last night contracted to show “The Palestinian,” an allegedly anti‐Israeli documentary film by Vanessa Redgrave, was bombed at 4:26 A.M.today..The bomb, which exploded the outer lobby, doors, Caused damage estimated by Gerald Peters, Manager of the Doheny Plaza theater, at $1,000.Despite this, the theater said it would start showings of the film tomorrow night.
“The Palestinian” was originally scheduled to be shown tomorrow night at the theater of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences under the sponsorship of the Workers League, which had rented the theater for one night for the usual $800 fee. There have been several political parties named the Workers League:
- Workers League (Ireland), sister organisation of the Workers' Revolutionary Party (UK)
- Workers League (Lebanon) (Toilers League)
- Workers League (UK), a split from the International Socialists (UK)
- Workers League (US), now known as the Socialist Equality Party
However, that screening was abruptly canceled yesterday when academy officials found out that the Workers League was selling tickets for $4 apiece.
Redgrave won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Julia. Her nomination drew attention and criticism, and the ceremony was picketed by both the Jewish Defense League (JDL) and counter-protesters waving PLO flags. In her acceptance speech at the Oscars, Redgrave made a short speech, saying "In the last few weeks you have stood firm and you have refused to be intimidated by the threat of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums, whose behaviour is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world, and to their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression". Regarding her use of the phrase "Zionist hoodlums", the Daily Telegraph later said, "It’s clear now that she was referring to the extremists of the Jewish Defense League who had offered a bounty to have her killed. Yet in the context of her support for the PLO, this was a spectacularly ill-chosen phrase, one that made it possible for Redgrave’s detractors to imply that she meant the whole state of Israel, and thus damn her as an anti-Semite for years to come".
Academy Award winner Paddy Chayefsky responded later during the ceremony while presenting an award, saying "if I expect to live with myself tomorrow morning" he had to address the ceremony being exploited for politics.
Later that year, at 4:26 a.m on June 15, 1978, a bomb exploded in front of the Doheny Plaza theatre in Los Angeles, where the film's scheduled opening later that evening was postponed a day. A member of the JDL was later convicted for the incident and sentenced to a three month "thorough psychological examination" with the California Youth Authority.
Redgrave was against a 2 state solution since she was for a military solution under which the nation-state of the Jewish people would be destroyed. So she wasn't just being political, she was darn-right hateful and anti-Semitic! All those involved had to do was look at her record involving Jews and Israel.
Her immediate family consisted of the Redgrave family of actors, as she is the daughter of Sir Michael Redgrave and Lady Redgrave (Rachel Kempson), the sister of Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, the wife of Italian actor Franco Nero, the mother of actresses Joely Richardson and Natasha Richardson and of screenwriter and director Carlo Gabriel Nero, the aunt of British actress Jemma Redgrave, the mother-in-law of actor Liam Neeson and film producer Tim Bevan, and the grandmother of Daisy Bevan, Micheál Richardson and Daniel Neeson.
Vanessa's father was bisexual, and so was her husband, Tony Richardson. Vanessa was a Communist. So was her father. Sir Michael and his wife, Rachel Kempson, were both involved in the Unity Theatre Communist Group and by 1944 he was a leading member of the Actors Group of the Communist Party. In the 40s, Hollywood had a blacklist of known Communists.
Redgrave, who had long advocated a cultural boycott of Israel because of its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, had agreed to come to Haifa after Israel and the PLO signed an agreement on Palestinian self-government and Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza. “In our naivete, we thought the time was appropriate (to bring Redgrave to Israel), that something had changed in the Israeli public,” Eyal said. “Regrettably, we were wrong.” JERUSALEM July 13, 1994— Bowing to public pressure and an almost total boycott of advance ticket sales, the Haifa Municipal Theater on Tuesday canceled two scheduled performances by British actress Vanessa Redgrave, whose years of militant support for the Palestine Liberation Organization led many here to view her as an enemy of Israel and anti-Semitic.
Resource:
Book: Defending Israel by Alan M. Dershowitz, Chp 8-p.109- -132
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Redgrave
https://www.nytimes.com/1978/06/16/archives/threater-for-redgrave-film-bombed.html
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