M. Night Blumenthal Sees Dead Gazans, Crazy Conservatives in Latest Film Project

Max Blumenthal is the M. Night Shyamalan of political Internet "filmmaking." The brash politico experienced early success with his brave foray into the bow-tied underbelly of conservative politics, producing "CPAC 2007: The Unauthorized Tour." The young filmmaker was praised for his innovation--using the exact same style as Michael Moore, but on the Internet, to isolate right-wing cranks and their most egregious quotes through his skillful manipulation of Windows MovieMaker.

Since then, he's become increasingly predictable and self-derivative, diving into crowds of conservatives with his video camera to deliver scoops like, "Hey, some College Republicans say doofy stuff," and "Christians will tell you they believe things that are in the Bible, if you ask."

Add the ponderous, self-important narration and unnecessary face-time for Blumenthal himself, and you feel like you're waiting for the unsatisfying twist ending to "Lady in the Water."

Blumenthal's latest creation--this time in conjunction with Alternet.org instead of The Nation magazine--takes him onto the streets of Manhattan, where he attempts to find right-leaning, pro-Israel demonstrators saying crazy things. He finds next to nothing, at a rally of thousands, but that doesn't keep him from using misleading headlines and editing.

The video is entitled "Bomb a Ghetto, Raise a Cheer," and the header on his written account is "Pro-Israel Rally Attended by Big-Time NY Dems Descends into Calls for 'Wiping Out' Palestinians"--which, come to think of it, is as inappropriate as calling Shyamalan's latest snoozefest "The Happening."

No one in the video actually does call for the "wiping out" of Palestinians. Blumenthal conveniently deprives viewers of the context necessary to make the distinction, but it's far more likely (obvious, even) that the people in the video are talking about Hamas terrorists, not all Gazans.

Blumenthal asks, "How many civilian casualties would it take before you questioned the attack," to which one man answers, "There's not a number involved," before the film cuts abruptly and suspiciously to another woman who answers the same question, "until they wipe them all out. They gotta go strong with this." The next woman on the tape refers to someone as a "cancer" that must be burnt out or removed, but Blumenthal doesn't allow her to specify whom exactly.

A man says, "They are forcing us to kill their children to defend our children," and it's not delivered as a rallying cry, but as an angry lament. It doesn't much matter to Blumenthal, but the statement is also demonstrably true. Hamas deliberately puts women and children in harm's way by shooting rockets from population centers and civilian facilities, like schools and hospitals, making it nearly impossible for Israel to defend its children without endangering the children of Gaza.

In an extreme example, prominent Hamas cleric Nazir Rayan explicitly instructed his children to stay inside his house to be "martyred" with him after he had been warned the IDF would take him out.

Surviving family members spoke to local Arab media and said that in the days before his death, Rayyan had repeatedly asked his children, "Who wants to die with me as a martyr?" The children would respond, "Yes, daddy, we all want to be with you alive or dead."

Rayyan's adult daughter, Wala, said even the younger children wished to die with their father. "If you had asked my four-year-old sister Aisha, who died in the attack, she would have told you that she preferred to die as a martyr," Wala told Ma'an news.

Blumenthal is incredulous of charges that Hamas endangers civilians by placing munitions inside schools, despite the fact that such practices have been documented by none other than the NYT. He mocks people who simply say, "even when they're in a school, you have to get them out," once again depriving the viewer of the context necessary to determine who "they" is, though any reasonable person would conclude it's a pronoun for "terrorists."