Mel Gibson's new movie, anti-Semitism, Passion of the Christ, etc

It's not surprising at all that Mel Gibson wants to make this movie about Judah Maccabee, the ancient Hebrew whose military victory over the Syrians and Greeks is the basis for the Jewish holiday Hanukkah. As I understand it, the victory also stopped the Jews from enjoying the benefits of Hellenism and Judaism remained an isolated, tribalistic religion. Sounds like exactly the sort of thing Gibson would be into.

Gibson dismissed the suggestion that he was trying to heal any rift with the Jews. He doesn't think that there is any rift.

How did this start, anyway?

He made the movie The Passion of the Christ which was seen as a threat to the Jews. Jewish groups had previously claimed that Jesus Christ, Superstar was a threat to the Jews, so that's not surprising. Then they found out that Gibson's father thought that the Nazi genocide never happened. They couldn't blame Gibson for what his father thought, but his failure to publicly denounce his then-86-year-old father was seen as proof that he was an anti-Semite.

Then he was arrested for drunk driving. He asked the Jewish cop arresting him if he was Jewish and said that Jews were "responsible for all the wars in the world", a bit of obvious hyperbole. There had in fact been a recent war that had plainly been started by Israel, and Gibson was drunk after all. He publicly apologized once he sobered up.

If I'm remembering correctly, that was everything. The movie and the drunk driving. Doesn't seem like much basis for a rift.

I haven't seen The Passion of the Christ and I'm not going to see it. As I said above, Jesus Christ Superstar and even The Last Temptation of Christ were condemned as anti-Semitic, so I'm not sure how seriously you should take that. None of those movies triggered a wave of anti-Semitism that I know of.
Rabbi Marvin Hier of the right-wing Simon Wiesenthal Central said that the Passion of the Christ was anti-Semitic because it put the Pharisees in a bad light.

Rob Schneider took out an ad in Variety announcing that he would never work with Gibson. People took that seriously. They couldn't tell it was a joke?

I still don't care for Mel Gibson and I'd rather he didn't make the thing. Palestine is preparing to declare statehood and the Zionists are gearing up to massacre them. The United States is already full of fundamentalist "Christian Zionists" who, along with the Israel Lobby, have horribly twisted U.S. foreign policy.

Palestinians are declaring their independence from Israel and it's time for the United States to do the same thing.