Sakhr al-Makhadi at Al Jazeera:
A series of controversial Israeli films are provoking outrage and plaudits in equal measure at the London Film Festival.
The best documentary award has gone to one of the year's most controversial films.
Defamation is a polemic by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir. In his expose of America's Anti-Defamation League (ADL), he claims anti-Semitism is being exaggerated for political purposes. He argues that American Jewish leaders travel around the world exploiting the memory of the Holocaust to silence criticism of Israel.
He gets inside the ADL, which claims to be the most powerful lobby group of its type anywhere in the world. With unprecedented access, he travels with them as they meet foreign leaders, and use the memory of the Holocaust to further their pro-Israeli agenda.
At one point, an ADL leader admits to Shamir that “we need to play on that guilt”.
Shamir says his film, Defamation, started out as a study of “the political games being played behind the term anti-Semitism”.
“It became more a film about perceptions and the way Jews and Israelis choose to see themselves and define themselves – a lot of the time unfortunately choosing the role of eternal victims as a way of life.”
More here. [Thanks to Kris Kotarski.]