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Gibson says sorry to Jews for rant

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Published Date: 02 August 2006
By GARY GENTILE AND SANDY COHEN IN LOS ANGELES
MEL Gibson said yesterday that he was not a bigot or an antisemite as he apologised to "everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words" he used when arrested for drink-driving.
The Hollywood star is now fighting a desperate battle to repair his reputation.

In the first fallout from his drunken tirade, the ABC TV network scrapped a planned mini-series about the Holocaust that it was developing with Gibson's company, Icon Productions. "Given that it has been nearly two years and we have yet to see the first draft of a script, we have decided to no longer pursue this project with Icon," it said.

When arrested on the Pacific Coast Highway last Friday by James Mee, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, Gibson blamed Jews "for all the wars in the world" and asked the arresting officer if he was Jewish.

In a statement issued through his publicist yesterday, Gibson asked to meet with Jewish leaders "with whom I can have a one-on-one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing".

"There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of antisemitic remark," Gibson, 50, said in the statement, which apologises to "everyone in the Jewish community". He went on: "Please know from my heart that I am not an antisemite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith."

Mr Mee, who is Jewish, would not comment specifically on what Gibson said. "That stuff is booze talking," the deputy said outside his home yesterday.

On Saturday, Gibson said he had "acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said."

He said he had struggled for years with alcoholism and his publicist later revealed Gibson was seeking treatment. "The guy is trying to stay alive," he said.

Gibson's tirade has drawn the ire of Jewish leaders and of Ari Emanuel, an influential talent agent, who blasted the star on the Arianna Huffington blog, HuffingtonPost.com. "At a time of escalating tensions in the world, the entertainment industry cannot idly stand by and allow Mel Gibson to get away with such tragically inflammatory statements," Mr Emanuel wrote.

He said the entertainment community should react by "professionally shunning Mel Gibson and refusing to work with him, even if it means a sacrifice to their bottom line".

This is not the first time Gibson has faced accusations of antisemitism. Some Jewish leaders said his film The Passion of the Christ cast Jews as the killers of Jesus. Before its release, Gibson's father, Hutton, was quoted as saying the Holocaust was "mostly fiction".

The full article contains 497 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 01 August 2006 9:25 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: Passion of Christ
 
1

Leonard,

Perth, Australia 02/08/2006 05:07:02

Who's Mel Gibson ?

2

penelope,

02/08/2006 05:54:04

Genuine forgiveness. Seventy times seven. Would do for a healthy start toward peace all around. Wouldn't it? Peace for Mel Gibson to receive forgiveness and peace for "the Jewish community" to grant it and vice versa.
That's my two cents, done and dusted.
Have a pleasant day everyone. :-)
Oh, and I hope Mel gets the help he needs/wants to get his alcohol addiction.....

3

james 1st,

nz 02/08/2006 06:54:43

is it not sad a drunk makes an anti jewish comment and it gets so much publicity. i see that an influential jewish talent agent has also commented on this, i have not noticed his condemnation of israel for their current program of exterminating lebanese, but i suppose that they dont count to him ,they are not jewish.
letsd get into the real world and comment on things yhat really matter

4

Aileen,

Greece 02/08/2006 07:52:15

Cant' we all just get along - comes to mind

5

Kaffir,

Edinburgh 02/08/2006 08:02:27

"Hatred of any kind goes against my faith", says Mel.

Yeah, right. So why did John-Paul II have to apologise in the 90s for centuries of Catholic pogroms against the Jews?

6

Corbett Hunckers,

Drumchapel 02/08/2006 09:13:51

William Wallace widny dae such a thing. He's always been ma hero. It could be a stitch up for his Jesus film, cos it upset some folk. Or he is jist pure mental with the bevvy right enough!

7

,

02/08/2006 11:00:03
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason: Scotsman Import, Original comment id: 22250, Article id was mapped to record!
8

,

02/08/2006 11:23:45
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason: Scotsman Import, Original comment id: 22271, Article id was mapped to record!
9

The Word,

02/08/2006 11:24:01

Civilisation, they say, is a veneer that dissolves in alcohol.

Certainly, alcohol dissolves inhibitions - and when we're no longer inhibited, isn't what's left the real us?

10

,

02/08/2006 12:19:26
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason: Scotsman Import, Original comment id: 22317, Article id was mapped to record!
11

Joe Black,

02/08/2006 12:41:20

Mel only said what a lot of Europeans think about the Jews; that they start a lot of wars. In the past they have had a war with everyone of its neighbours. Occupied land and taken thousands of prisoners.

They criticise the USA for their Guantanamo Bay Detainment Camp in an occupied part of Cuba. And yet what about Israel's secretive detainment camps.

It must be embarrassing for the Americans to be dominated by the Jews in their own country.

Fortunately in Europe although there are a lot of Jews we're not affected by them.

12

,

02/08/2006 12:54:04
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason: Scotsman Import, Original comment id: 22375, Article id was mapped to record!
13

Joe M.,

Switzerland 02/08/2006 14:20:14

Gee there seems to be an awful lot of comments removed here, I wonder why?

14

Bien E. Bien,

02/08/2006 22:09:07

One good thing about this episode is that it will temper the memory of Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome as the low-point in the career of Mel Gibson. That said, what is really more offensive: risking the lives of others by drinking and driving, or voicing an unpopular opinion about Jews?

15

Jamie,

Philadelphia, PA 03/08/2006 16:49:48

I am stunned by the degree of ignorance on this board. Can some of the posters truly believe what they are writing? It staggers the mind.

1. Jew and Israeli and not synonymous. Most Jews live outside of Israel and are loyal to their own countries before any other. Many support Israel; many do not. What fool would lump millions of individuals into one category.

2. Gibson didn't mention Israel. He learned the cop who was arresting him was Jewish and went for the jugular. If the cop was fat, I'll bet we would have heard about his tirade about fat people. This doesn't make his comments less odious, but simply unrelated to the current political climate.

3. Many Israeli policies are unjust. However, they did not start the war in Lebanon. Rockets were fired at Israeli cities and two soldiers were kidnapped. This was done to capitalize on the kidnapping in Gaza. The Israelis have stepped way over the line in their overreaction, but, again, they represent Israelis, not the Jews who live in other continents all over the world.

4. To the person who suggested Jews own all of the weath in the world, or that they're uniformly powerful, let me tell you that my Jewish friends would certainly not mind the wealth, since most of them are working Joes who, like the rest of us, struggle to make ends meet. They include teachers and plumbers and aircraft mechanics. Please try to educate yourself so you don't find yourself parroting long-discredited neo-nazi web sites.

5. Let's not overlook the real danger of that night's incident: Mr. Gibson could have killed someone. He was drunk and driving at double the speed limit.

6.We are all giving this celebrity too much power when we put so much weight to his words. The Sheriff's department cut him a break (at first) because he was a celebrity and now people are arguing over his words because he's a celebrity. Let's move on. The world is full of issues more important than the rants of a drunken actor.

16

zina,

new york city 03/08/2006 18:11:16

i am jewish and im from israel. i live in the states now and it seems to me that people that never expirenced was have to much to say about the way israel handles wars. i think mel gibson is not telling the truth, i do think he has a problem with jew and i understand that people that hate that way are very very sad themselves. i think you should all go a little further then looking at the news before you have an opinion about israel or jews. dont be ignorent its ugly. thank you.

17

stephen,

brooklyn new york 04/08/2006 05:31:13

Alistair of Edinburgh's notice ( 5 above) of anti-Jewish malevolence as part and parcel of Mel Gibson's "faith" --blaming Jews for Christ's execution is, after all woven clearly in the story of the Passion-- is apt enough. Such notice, however, is limited to Gibson's avowed religion, while missing the obvious escapist rhetoric of Gibson's declaration about hatred. For, when he says "Hatred of any kind goes against my faith," Gibson does not address his individual potential for hatred (of Jews); he only hides behind conformist Christian doctrine and the nostrums passed down to him by authority. It's a fig leaf to his actual mind concerning a category of humanity and concerning a challenge to his own self-defined identity (Christian). His comment, furthermore, does not in any way invest or guarantee Gibson as a follower of Christ's teachings. Hatred may go against his putative faith; it doesn't mean Gibson is serious about practicing such a faith, however encoded in bigotry it may be. Gibson, as evidenced here, is not speaking as a man.

18

t,

New York 07/08/2006 00:48:16

I loved Passion of the Christ. It was a work of art.
Jews who have trouble with it should read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John-all of them Jewish.
No one has to clean up history to suit Jewish
propagandists who like to blame other groups for their own mistreatment, yet absolve themselves for
historical misdeeds by Jewish individuals or groups.
Mel Gibson may have meant that Jewish arms dealers are selling arms to countries and groups in conflict around the world, starting wars to sell munitions. He may also have meant that historically, as in World War I, Jewish munitions dealer have done this. He may also have meant that internationally orchestrated Jewish groups created the prevaricated rationale for the illegal, genocidal US invasion of Iraq,as well as the present]
Isreali genocide in Lebanon. They are also attempting to start genocidal wars for profit against Iran and Syria.
Ariel Sharon tried to sell cloaking technology to India which would have changed the delicate military balance in its conflict with Pakistan, and Isreal was
dealing arms with China behind the US's back.
So Mel Gibson was not so very wrong when he said Jews started all the wars in the world.
Whether this is true for each and every war, I don't know, but Jewish groups, orchestrated internationally, have defintely had a hand in a lot of
wars.


 

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