Israel-haters have uncovered a video of Hollywood actor Paul Newman supposedly criticizing the double standards the US has for Israel:
Seeing this video, I was surprised, given what I had always assumed about Paul Newman and his pro-Israel proclivities. He was the star of Exodus, one of the most pro-Israel movies of all time, after all.
He was also apparently a proud Jew:
He absolutely self-identified as Jewish. I think he got taken with the idea of being the outsider, the rebel. So if the other kids were keeping him out of the high school fraternity, or he got into a fight in the service after being called a slur, he wanted to be Jewish because it was more heroic and he always wanted to be a bit of a hero,” Rosenthal said.
When Newman’s career began to really take off, it was suggested to him by Jewish producer Sam Spiegel and others that he change his name to something more WASPy, as many Jewish actors had.
“I could have eliminated my Jewish roots, simply obliterated the thing that had caused me so much discomfort. But it seemed more of a challenge to me to keep my real name, to insist upon it as a badge,” Newman wrote.
Of course, none of this is proof he didn’t change his mind and become anti-Israel. He was politically liberal and anti-war after all.
But a further look into his politics may shed some more light on the point I think he was trying to make in the above clip.
Newman supported their 1980s effort to establish a bilateral Nuclear Freeze to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the US and the Soviet Union. He said he would stand up for Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential election as long as there was cold Budweiser and Nuclear Freeze involved.
I would posit that Newman’s point in the clip was not to express opposition to US support of Israel but rather his opposition to creating an enemy of the Soviet Union to justify the nuclear arms race.
In fact, the episode from which the clip was taken was on this exact topic of nuclear proliferation:
Furthermore, Newman is not on record as ever criticizing Israel. You’d think such statements would make the news.
Before he died, Newman donated money to the late Bill Richardson’s campaign for president in 2008, who has been described as one of Israel’s best American friends by someone in the know.
And if all of this is not enough to convince you, this from the executive director of American Friends of Jordan River Village, which continues to receive support from the Newman’s Own Foundation, as part of the SeriousFun Children’s Network, the global organization of 30 camps and programs founded by Newman.
“I’ve heard from [Newman’s] daughter and his friends that he loved Israel,”
Case closed.
