Filmmaker Demme portrays Jimmy Carter's campaign against biased media over his book
I had a chance to review Jonathahn Demme's new documentary/movie "Jimmy Carter: A Man from Plains" (SONY Pictures, 2007). It's an amazingly powerful film.
Besides being a very powerful look at the controversy surrounding the former president's passioned views on Middle East peace and the utter failure of the Bush administration, Carter also takes some serious shots at the mainstream American news media, describing them as disingenuous, unfair and biased. Carter is especially critical of journalists who "reviewed" his book but never read it, only focusing on the controversial title "Palestine" Pace not Apartheid."
Carter denounces those who exaggerated the meaning of the title, falsely claiming that he called Israel an apartheid state -- something he never di (I read the book), and those who claimed he is critical of The Wall. Carter says the idea for the Wall came up under Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered by an Israeli terrorist in 1995, but that the concept was to put it on the border to stop terrorism amnd violence. Instead, Carter points out, the Wall was put inside the West Bank at the urging and leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, in order to take more Palestinian lands.
How these issues were so distorted, twisted and abused by Carter's critics and by some unprofessional journalists is a topic that is a cornerstone of the Demme documentary which opened a few weeks back and is struggling against media bias to get the word out.
You can read my review of the film at the Arab Writers Group Syndication where I and others write at www.ArabWritersGroup.com.
Ray Hanania
www.hanania.com