Remove ‘Paradise Now’ Petition To Arrive at Academy Today

A petition demanding that the Oscar nomination of a film widely regarded as sympathetic to terrorists be revoked will be delivered to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today.Directed by an Israeli-born Palestinian, Hany Abu-Assad, “Paradise Now” is one of the five films nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Award. It depicts what may be the last 48 hours in the lives of two young Palestinian men as they contemplate committing a suicide bombing, weighing their doubts and commitments against their belief that “death is better than inferiority.” One man decides against becoming a terrorist; the other’s fate is left inconclusive.The petition, which had more than 35,000 signatures yesterday evening, was inspired by the experience of an Israeli, Yossi Zur, whose 16-year-old son was killed in a suicide bombing in 2003. Mr. Zur wrote an open letter condemning “Paradise Now” after it won a Golden Globe award to thunderous applause at the awards ceremony on January 16. The Golden Globes, presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, are often harbingers of the Oscars.Reached by telephone in Israel yesterday, Mr. Zur told The New York Sun that the movie “conveys the message that Palestinians have tried everything else and failed. And because of the Israelis, they are now forced to use this means of suicide bombing. … It legitimizes the killing of innocent people.”He said the Academy, by nominating “Paradise Now,” had “put a seal of authority on it.”The film’s director, Mr. Abu-Assad, has defended “Paradise Now,” saying: “I understand that it will be upsetting to some that I have given a human face to the suicide bombers; I am also very critical of the suicide bombers…. If you see the film, it’s fairly obvious that it does not condone the taking of lives.”An Arab peace activist, Nonie Darwish, will deliver the petition to the academy.Her father, Mustafa Hafaz, was a notorious terrorist before his assassination in 1956, and she told the Sun yesterday that, growing up in a Middle Eastern culture that glorified terrorists, she was swayed for many years by its propaganda.“This is what we suffered from,” she said. “We don’t want to sympathize anymore with terrorists. We don’t want to understand their dark minds. No cause on earth gets my sympathy if you kill innocent civilians.”The film is offensive to moderate Arabs for its “excuses for terrorism,” she said, adding that, even if the Academy does not withdraw its nomination, “at least we’ve spoken our views for the families of the victims.”Asked whether the petition would have any effect on the Academy, a spokesman, John Pavlik, said, “No.”He said the Academy had already stated its position about the movie: “We nominated it for an Oscar.” Whether it wins will be decided in a democratic election by “three or four hundred voters, each with a different opinion,” he added. Relatively few Academy voters actually attend the screenings of the foreign language nominees as they are required to do in order to vote.The Academy Awards will be announced on Sunday.

Remove ‘Paradise Now’ Petition To Arrive at Academy Today

Remove ‘Paradise Now’ Petition To Arrive at Academy Today

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