Activism and BDS Beat 27 June 2014
The activists are greeted with racist slogans by people on the set.
Dig, to be shown on NBC’s cable network USA, has generated strong protests from Palestinians who see it is as part of Israel’s effort to consolidate its control and advance the Judaization of occupied Jerusalem.
Responding to protests from Palestinians, NBC vice president Cory Shields promised last December that the show would not be filmed in Silwan in eastern Jerusalem, a Palestinian neighborhood which Israel’s occupation municipality is in the process of ethnically cleansing.
But NBC has violated this promise and the filming has proceeded in Silwan and other locations targeted for Israeli settlement.
The Israeli government and Jerusalem’s occupation municipality are providing the series a $6.3 million grant. The cast and crew recently met with Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett, leader of the extreme right-wing nationalist and pro-settler party Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home).
Invading the set
Shortly after someone from the film crew calls out “action,” the video shows activists marching on to the set shouting “One, two, three, four occupation no more, five, six, seven eight, we don’t dig apartheid state” and “Shame on you Hollywood! Shame on you NBC!”
The activists, who can be seen carrying large protest banners, are met with a racist response.
They are told to “go to Sudan” and “go to Hizbullah” and in one disturbing moment an extra begins to sing a song in praise of Baruch Goldstein, the American settler who massacred 29 Palestinians at the Ibrahimi mosque in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron in 1994.
Goldstein was killed by survivors defending themselves.
The extra says to camera “I ask for blessings on Baruch Goldstein’s grave… because what he did was self sacrifice. Not because you’ve got to kill Arabs, but because in his action he saved many Jews.”
One of the protestors says: “Our message is that you [NBC] are complicit in Israeli crimes, in whitewashing Israeli crimes with the support and investment of the Jerusalem Municipality and Naftali Bennett.”
This is not the first time opponents of NBC’s complicity in Israeli colonization have made their way on to a Dig set.
Earlier this month Jason Isaacs, the Dig actor who previously starred in several Harry Potter films, was confronted on set as the show filmed on location in eastern occupied Jerusalem.
It remains to be seen whether Isaacs will condemn the kind of racism expressed on the set of his new show.
Comments
Thank you, brave Israelis.
Permalink Allan Poobus replied on
Thank you, brave Israelis. Continue to speak truth to power. In the spirit of Rachael Corrie, thank you.
Hollywood colludes in Ethnic Cleansing
Permalink Caitlin Ni Chonaill replied on
Whether filmed in Jaffa or in the actual location of Silwan, East Jerusalem, we can be sure that 'Dig' will be full of lies and justifications for the destruction of the Palestinian community in and around Jerusalem. I hope that these brave young people, who are challenging their government from within and who invaded the film set to make this point, know how deeply their courage and integrity are appreciated by the Palestine solidarity movement internationally.
Thanks to courageous Israeli activists
Permalink Tess replied on
These young people are showing the highest form of altruism. It is so much more difficult to go against what are known as "our own"and I salute their integrity and their courage.