Comment

Jan 20, 2017
I am lodging a strong protest against the VPL for including “The Attack” DVD in its collection. . My reasoning: Though this movie has been reviewed favourably as an ‘anti-war’ film there is no escaping the fact that the film condones and even supports the Palestinian practice of suicide bombers. In the film many young Israeli children are killed by the wife of the main actor, an Arab doctor working in Tel Aviv, Israel. She sets off the bomb strapped to her chest, kills 17 children and herself. There are multiple scenes where the Arab Imam in Nablus and other Arabs justify suicide bombing as being a legitimate means of fighting Israeli oppression. To me this is a hate-ridden perspective completely lacking in any kind of morality, human ethics, and watching this film brought about in me a strong disgust for the filmmaker and for the VPL for carrying such an evil film in its collection. Yes evil, for to condone and even try to justify terrorist suicide bombers is completely outside any kind of democratic principles and should never to allowed to enter anyone’s consciousness. All this film will do is make it easier for terrorists or people thinking about becoming a suicide bomber to go out and commit terrorist activity. At the end of the film the Arab doctor learns that his nephew organized his wife’s participation, that he ‘promised her’ not to tell her husband and that he ‘had to obey her wishes’. Yet the nephew feels totally justified in the suicide bombing, only regrets that the Arab doctor’s wife was the one who killed herself in the act. But he stands 100% behind the suicide bombing because he is, proudly it seems, a terrorist though he doesn’t view himself that way. The Arab doctor does not inform the Israeli police about the terrorist cell that his nephew belongs to. He is going to allow his nephew to continue his terrorist activities, to allow the terrorist cell to meet and plan more bombings. This film is 100% disgusting in its insidious clever means of trying to justify terrorist activities. I am astonished, very angry at the VPL for allowing this DVD to be in circulation. You are abetting and aiding hate crimes by doing this. You are making me feel ashamed to be a Canadian. There are laws against hate crimes and surely this is one of them.