The Large Image: How Israel Received the West examines how Israel has come to occupy such a privileged and guarded place within the Western world. It traces the journey of the Jewish individuals from biblical tales of origin by way of centuries of persecution and the appearance of Zionism, all the best way to the creation of Israel and its ensuing occupation of the Palestinian territory. Alongside the best way, what’s revealed is a strategy of transformation, of how Jews went from being despised by early Christians as “Christ killers” – seeding a vile anti-Judaism that might mutate into anti-Semitism – to being thought of a part of the white Western world, sharing a typical Judeo-Christian heritage.
The movie lays naked the alignment of Zionism with “Western civilisation”, intentionally placing it in opposition to the individuals of the east – Arabs, Muslims. This is able to lay the foundations for an Israel the place Arab Jews can be marginalised and European Ashkenazi Jews would dominate and go on to turn out to be the bedrock of assist for right-wing governments and ultra-right nationalists.
What turns into obvious is the century-old coverage, first outlined by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, that solely pressure might impose Zionism and beat Palestinians into accepting the fact of colonisation.
Sustaining the imposition of this settler-colonial actuality would require a “particular relationship” between Israel and the US. It will be fostered not simply by US geostrategic pursuits within the Center East but in addition facilitated by the “whitening” of Jews within the American and Western creativeness, folding them into an opportunistic Judeo-Christian id that excluded Arabs. This deliberate positioning of an “us” and a “them” has served to legitimise Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory and the bloodbath of Palestinian individuals, all below the umbrella and assist of the Western world order.
The horror of Israel’s battle on Gaza is obvious for all of the world to see. Greater than 40,000 persons are lifeless, nearly all of them girls and kids, killed within the identify of “self-defence” by Israeli forces on a mission to “destroy” Hamas after the assaults of October 7, 2023. We’re witnessing, in plain sight, an unfolding genocide. And but Israel continues its battle. Its mission creeping into Lebanon, the place extra civilians are killed as Israel targets Hezbollah. All that is enjoying out with the total assist of the West as Israel claims to be preventing on behalf of Western civilisation and towards “human animals” in a battle between the Judeo-Christian world and “barbarians” – a contrived narrative lengthy within the making.
Filmmaker: Sanjiev Johal
That includes:
Shaul Magid – visiting professor of recent Jewish research, Harvard College’s Divinity Faculty
David Freidenreich – professor of Jewish research, Colby Faculty
Omer Bartov – professor of Holocaust and genocide research, Brown College
Raz Segal – writer, Genocide within the Carpathians
Michelle Mart – affiliate professor, Pennsylvania State College
Arie M Dubnov – affiliate professor, George Washington College
