Reality Is ‘Zionist Propaganda’

By Seth Mandel

Monday, January 13, 2025

 

The new film September 5, about the live television coverage of the 1972 terrorist attack against the Israeli Olympic team, had piqued my interest mostly because of a basketball game between the Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz in March 2020. In the middle of that game, the NBA decided to suspend the season because one of the players had tested positive for the coronavirus.

 

And then the country shut down.

 

Scott Van Pelt, the beloved ESPN anchor, was essentially forced into narrating the onset of the apocalypse live on television. A few days later, Van Pelt told GQ: “Think about this, man: four days ago we were playing games with people. Four days ago. Now, if you go to the grocery store, there’s a can of Manhattan clam chowder and a cucumber with a bite taken out of it. That’s what’s left in four days. And it’s because Rudy Gobert had the coronavirus.”

 

I had never seen anything like it, watching from my living room as a basketball game became the only broadcast in the world that mattered. I assumed there had been nothing comparable at least since that fateful day in September 1972, when Palestinian terrorists stormed the Olympic residences, murdered two Israeli athletes and kidnapped nine others, all of whom were killed in a botched rescue by West German police.

 

The early drama unfolded on live TV, thanks to ABC’s coverage. Which means the movie about it revolves around the live footage watched by millions in real-time and documented for posterity.

 

And so the “pro-Palestinian” backlash to it is among the most ridiculous temper tantrums I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of anti-Israel temper tantrums.

 

After the new year, the theater chain Alamo Drafthouse began showing September 5 in Brooklyn. Many of its own employees, organizing under its union, were outraged. They petitioned their employers to stop showing the film. Alamo appears, as of this writing, to have ignored them.

 

But it’s the petition itself, which of course soon garnered signatures from all manner of local organizers, that has to be read to be believed. Calling the film “Zionist propaganda,” it reads, in part:

 

Echoing the well-worn pattern seen since 9/11, September 5 is yet another attempt by the Western media to push its imperialist and racist agenda, manufacturing consent for the continued genocide and cultural decimation of Palestine and its peoples. It is quintessential Orientalism: Depicting Arabs and brown people as evil, antisemitic terrorists, while lionizing the very newsrooms that provide political cover and, in many cases, cheer for endless wars and genocide. We’re certain that Alamo’s quirky pre-show won’t provide this context.

 

The movie “depicts” Arabs as “antisemitic terrorists”? The movie is about an actual event, in which Arab anti-Semitic terrorists carried out murderous acts of terrorism. What’s more, the film is about the coverage itself—because a fair amount of what happened was broadcast. People watched it. This was a historical event that happened, like the moon landing.

 

More from the petition: “We, NYC Alamo United, wholeheartedly condemn the Alamo’s willingness to profit off of the genocide of Palestine.”

 

So we have two principles undergirding the opposition to the film. The first is that literal history as it happened is “Zionist propaganda,” and the second is that any depiction of Israelis or Palestinians is “profit[ing] off the genocide of Palestine.”

 

As to the first principle, I happen to agree. Reality is very harsh to the modern Western left’s anti-Zionist narrative, and it is very kind to the position of the Jewish state. As was the case when pro-Palestinian activists picketed showings of footage from Oct. 7 filmed by Hamas themselves, it is very difficult to see Palestinian terrorists as victims if you know what actually happened.

 

As to the second, I’m afraid the wider entertainment world has certainly adopted a pose that does not agree with the premise but abides by that premise’s preferred policy: It’s just too much trouble to show films or publish books with Jews in them, especially Israeli Jews.

 

After all, the Toronto International Film Festival, The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg noted in September, found itself in just such a predicament:

 

My understanding is that TIFF outright rejected September 5, which was the hottest sales title that played at the Venice and Telluride film fests — and, THR reported this morning, has landed at Paramount — ostensibly because it might generate controversy related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So, fearing a backlash, the fest did not screen a film that is going to get a best picture Oscar nomination and maybe even win — it could have done so on opening night, which was, appropriately enough, Sept. 5 — but did screen Russians at War, a documentary thats sympathetic portrayal of Russians involved in the Ukraine conflict did result in protests of such a scale that the fest ended up pulling the film.

 

The great hope for the future of art in America is that bigoted censors make arguments that are too absurd for even corporate chains to take seriously, thus delegitimizing the entire outrage industry. In that sense, the reaction to September 5 is off to a good start.