אייל סיון , אייכמן ,וידאוטייפ ,ושקרים

אנחנו אכן לא מבינים את מר סיוון, והפער בין טענותיו של טרייסטר לטענתו של סיוון היא פשוטה:
טרייסטר מגיע בגישה של חקר האמת, בעוד לדידו של סיוון אין שום משמעות לאמת זו.
במידה הזאת סיוון הוא חסיד הדקונסטרוקציה המושלם- תעמולן פוליטי בכל שס"ה גידיו. אין זה משנה כך או כך אם כל סרטיו הם אמת לאמיתה או שקרים מבחילים, זוהי תעמולה(במובן של הצגת עיוות פוליטי במסווה של אמת). אם סרטיו למשל של דוד פרלוב מטרתם לעניין ולאתגר את הצופה,סרטיו של סיוון "מעצבים", צופה הווה אומר- משקרים לו אבל למען מטרה טובה.

ודין סרטיו כדין סרטי התעמולה הנאצית.
מה ההבדל?

כל סרט דוקומנטרי לא באמת מתאר את המציאות אלא רק מכוון את המציאות לנקודת מבטו של הבמאי, זה שאתה עוד לא מבין את זה רק משקף בפעם המיליון את בורותך!

Thanks. Having gotten so far, I'm back in the cafe on the way to do shopping, in order to give you links for Sivan's "historic mistake" "Le Monde" article in English, the video of his talk in London where he did the demagoguery about Israel deligitimizing himself (near the end, during question time), his endorsement of the boycott call and what the text he endorsement was saying.

http://www.radioislam.org/islam/english/jewishp/france/juifisrael.htm

http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/2007/03/zionism-israeli-media-and-rationalising.html

http://www.oznik.com/petitions/020407_endorsements.html

http://www.oznik.com/petitions/020407.html

In other thoughts, for whatever it's worth, I was thinking that if this much falsehood were to be uncovered for an entire career, it would already be a scandal that would posthumously destroy a reputation (isn't that why Guenter Grass didn't wait till he was dead to admit he was in the Waffen SS?). In Sivan's case, it's all just for one film that has been closely examined, which is mind-boggling. The other thing is that, although I am not aware that Sivan has praised the Nazi antisemitic "documentary" "The Eternal Jew," he no longer has a legitimate right to criticise it, for there is no technique in it he hasn't used himself

כשאני כותב על משוררת
שוליים כל שהיא ( ואני מניח שבמונח "משוררת שוליים " כוונתך לכך שמעולם לא שמעת עליה עד שאני היזכרתי את שמה ) שהיא משוררת חשובה או.
למצער טובה אז אני מביא נימוקים לטענותיו. לידיעתך הטיעונים שלי בסופו של דבר תמיד מתקבלים בידי מבקרים אחרים בתחום .
.הם מעטים מאוד זה נכון יש רק חמישה או שישה מבקרים נוספים שטורחים לקרוא את ספריהם של משוררי שוליים ולכתוב עליהם ביקורות מפורטות כמוני ,כל השאר מעדיפים להתמקד רק במשוררים הוותיקים הידועים המוכרים והבטוחים.
אבל כאשר זה קורה אז המשוררת הנ"ל כבר לא משוררת שוליים.
נחזור לעניין במאי הדוקומנטרים
.ותשומת לבך עוד לא הפרכת שום טענה שלי או של טרייסר חוץ מלטעון שאנחנו לא מבינים שום דבר.
אז יפה יש לך הזדמנות לטעון כאן את טענותיך בפירוט
מה בדיוק אתה טוען : שבמאי דוקומנטרים יכול לזייף עובדות כרצונו ?
ואגב אתה במאי דוקומנטרים ? או מבין משהו בתחום ?

יש הבדל רציני בין עריכה מגמתית או חיזוק נקודת מבט, לבין עיוות המציאות באופן בוטה,
זיוף ויצירת אשליה באמצעים טכניים, הסתרת
עובדות קריטיות לנושא, הצגת חצאי אמיתות.
תחשוב על זה, גידי.

אולי תגיד משהו במקום הדברים הריקים והמפרגרים שלך?

Those two earlier comments were posted by Eli from e-mails I sent him. Though I stand by every word, I might have phrased them differently had I known they'd go online.

Gidi, I hope you can read English, sorry that I have technical difficulty writing Hebrew right now. Even someone who wants to will not be capable of making an objective documentary film. Any one with reasonable intelligence can tell you the difference between a film that attempts to be balanced (whether or not it comes close), a film that is slanted and biased, and one that is not only slanted and biased in what it chooses to show, but also alters, fabricates or forges material that a viewer will almost certainly accept as authentic and genuine. The above are three very different kinds of film and "The Specialist" belongs to the latter category, though Sivan tried very hard to prevent this from being known.

In May 2001, in New Delhi, Sivan said "Truth through image can be only an accumulation of points of view, out of the same corpus of material, a free manipulation of the archives, the reconstruction-deconstruction and reconstruction again of a new narrative, even opposing to the original aim of this material."

What does this mean? It a bullshit way of saying "It isn't true until I've played with it." He is asserting there is such a thing as truth and he's explicitly saying that authentic material that hasn't been tampered with cannot transmit the truth. He's trying to establish a monopoly on what is true. It is true that only one angle of an event cannot give a complete picture, but why should that mean it's better able to tell the real story once Eyal Sivan has had his way with it (the rape analogy is very apt here)?

At the beginning of his longest rebuttal of my claims (where I did some maths and counted him making a false point on average once every 40 words) he says that some of the claims made by "the archivist"(that's me) are factually correct (all of them were, but let's not get started again), but illustrate nothing other than my complete ignorance of what making a film is all about. Sivan is dismissive of claims that are merely factually correct and goes on to expound truths that exist independent of, even contrary to, things that are true only in a factual sense.

During the Eichmann trial only a small excerpt of the interviews Dutch Nazi Willem Sassen conducted with Eichmann in Argentina in the 50s were admitted as evidence. The reason was that only transcripts of the recordings were available and it was questioned whether they accurately reflected what Eichmann had said. All three judges agreed that one of the transcripts bore sufficient evidence that Eichmann had approved its contents and wording for it to be admitted. Judge Binyamin Halevy was the dissenting voice; he thought more should have been admitted. Hannah Arendt points out in her book that she had access to the entire transcript that was admitted (more than was made available to the press) but no more than that. Since then it has been possible to listen to the recordings themselves without any question marks as to whether Eichmann said what one hears. Irmtrud Wojak (whose book on the subject, I fear, is available only in German) has debunked Arendt's view of Eichmann rather conclusively on the strength of the recordings. It makes it clear that he spoke very differently when he was not on trial and he employs a harsh and savage tone of voice sometimes that he was careful to avoid using during the trial.

I point this out because if the truth had been of interest to Sivan he could have researched to see whether what has become available since Arendt wrote her book strengthens or invalidates what she wrote. He did the opposite: he not only limited himself to Arendt (of course, there's nothing illegitimate, in and of itself, in trying to base a film on a well-known book), he exaggerated her already subjective perception and did whatever it took to make the archive footage appear to back her up. I strongly suspect that if Hannah Arendt were alive to see the film and were made aware of the no-holds-barred methods Sivan employed to achieve his results, she would sue the pants off him.

The thing I find saddest about all this is that the arguments are so drenched in politics and group-think. Of course it makes no sense for a state to fund someone opposed to it, but Zionism is only a political movement to which one may be opposed if one doesn't agree with its aims. And if Jews exist as a group distinct from others, then surely there are identifying characteristics, which one may like or not like. What I'm saying is there is too much screaming about whether Sivan is anti-Zionist or antisemitic (for "us" or against "us") going on and not enough about the fact that in his attempts to persuade others to these viewpoints he has no compunction about resorting to falsification to sell his case.

If Sivan wants Israel boycotted, let him support that view without denying he did so the moment he comes to beg for money. Meni Mazuz didn't decline to prosecute Sivan under criminal law because there's no problem with what Sivan did. Mazuz was merely recognising that free speech has been defined, by precedent, as including the right to make false statements about historical events. Mazuz said that for that reason he couldn't touch Sivan, but didn't rule out civil suits by those affected or other actions. Now that Sivan has withdrawn his application to the Rabinowitz Fund and Channel 8 says it will go ahead and finance him, I'm seeing evidence of a widespread move to disconnect from Channel 8. This is every bit as legitimate as Sivan's support for boycott of Israel. I can't think of a more direct and effective way for the public to get across its message that Channel 8's support of Sivan is unacceptable and if it starts to hurt Channel 8, they will know what to tell Sivan when they drop him. Bad as it is to have someone with the ethical standards of a Sivan making movies for public consumption, it is far more worrying that he is being employed in education and I've seen what his students have written in talkbacks to the articles on this scandal about how pushy he is with his ideology in the classes he teaches. I don't know whether there is a legal problem with recording what he says in the lectures he gives without media presence and where he has the authority of a teacher, but if it doesn't break the law it ought to be done and made public. It is also about time someone broke the conspiracy of media silence that characterises all negative reportage of his deeds in France. I am anything but right-wing, but throughout this affair I have gradually become more and more shocked to see how easily Sivan gets his views aired and how difficult it is to get unpleasant facts (not opinions) about him out in the open.

על הסיפור הזה שמעתי בכלל ממאמר של הבמאי רם בnrg
שקרא לעורך מעריב לא לפטר כתב שטען שהסרט
שאייל סיוון רוצה לעשות יחסל את ישראל
לא קישרתי אז בין אייל סיוון לסרט המעצבן הזה על אייכמן שראיתי ביום שואה או סתם בערוץ 8
לא זוכרת,
אני זוכרת שגם בלי לדעת את מלוא העובדות הסרט עצבן אותי בגלל שהמניפלציות בו היו מאוד גלויות. כל הסיפור הזה מעורר המון שאלות לדעתי.האים זה באמת מקארתיזם
לשלול קיומו של סרט שעוד לא צולם
בגלל שהבמאי מבקר את המדינה בצורות תעמולתיות
זולות ואפילו שקריות? ז"א האים
לא לתת לבמאי לצלם זאת הדרך להילחם בו?
גם מייקל מור הוא במאי תעמולתי אבל הוא נראה לי מאוד רלוונטי וחלק משלב טבעי שהקולנוע הדקומונטרי עובר וצריך לעבור.
עד עכשיו הדעות של מייקל מור לא הצליחו לעצבן אותי כמו הדעות של אייל סיוון אז כל מי שטען שצריך לצנזר אותו נראה לי כמו רפובליקני קוף פרמטיבי
אם אני ארצה לצנזר את סיוון (שאני מתעבת את העבודה הקודמת שלו) האים אני לא פרמטיבית קופה?

News from France, May 23rd. It is reported that Eyal Sivan, who lost his case against Alain Finkielkraut in the middle of last year, has now also lost his appeal against the verdict. I assume that this will mean he must pay all Finkielkraut's legal costs.

This has probably not been the best month of Sivan's life, but before anyone starts feeling sorry for him, please remember that his own recklessly aggressive behaviour has been the sole cause of his troubles.

Tali, a couple of points.

You write

אני לא חושבת שהסרט על אייכמן
מעצבן ככול שיהיה, הוא הסתה
נגד מדינת ישראל. ולכן אני חושבת שנסיון
לשכנע קרן לא לתמוך בסרט הוא מעשה אלים

You are right that people have unfortunately been making a political argument of this. I keep on insisting that there is a much more important point: Sivan is demonstrably dishonest, not only within at least one film, but also in terms of statements he has made about his work, in addition to slandering institutions and individuals. It is, of course, anyone's right to say "I don't care whether the filmmaker to whom money is awarded is honest, whether he tells blatant lies or puts them on the screen in a way that convinces that they are the truth, or whether he has found a sly way to incite against certain groups," but, unless you are prepared to make such a statement, you have no choice but to draw a certain line somewhere that prevents that from being your opinion.

What do I mean by sly incitement? Let's take a look at some of what Sivan does in "The Specialist." He wants you to think Eichmann did nothing but his job, so he includes none of the testimony that that wasn't the case. He surgically removes it from testimony to which it was integral which he does use (Meyer) or fabricates an exchange (Freudiger) creating the false impression that the Judenrat had a cordial relationship with him. What is Sivan telling us in general in his film (and book)? The Nazis were only doing their job (Brauman says that is no problem, it is only a problem when Jews "collaborate" with them), the Jews played along and sacrificed their own people and later tried to pin the blame on one small functionary who only cared about getting his transports efficiently dispatched. And all this in the name of preserving a victim status to enable them to steal a country belonging to another people. I see nothing wrong with chipping away at myths that are nothing but myths (see my favorable review of "Yizkor" still on Sivan's website – oh, yes, my opinion is only worthless to him when I don't agree with him), but I see a lot wrong with conspiring to compel people to believe things that aren't true. I'm not accusing Sivan of antisemitism, because I don't care if he is. Surely it's everyone's right to be against whatever they want. I see, however, that details he has falsified can easily lead others to become antisemitic, because they paint a more negative picture of one group (and he doesn't seem to care whether people interpret that as being Jews, Israelis or Zionists) than the unfalsified facts would merit. There is, as you may know, a joking definition of an antisemite as someone who hates Jews "more than necessary" and causing hatred of Jews by causing worse to be believed of them than is true is arguably incitement to antisemitism. There are, are there not, reasons why lying is not considered morally and ethically every bit the equal of telling the unvarnished truth? But if one wants a reason not to give Sivan funds, surely the easiest is simply to cite his own endorsement of the artistic and cultural boycott of Israel. That he applies for funds at all is a contradiction of that position.

One of the links Eli put up was new to me (דיון על גבולות הז'אנר הדוקומנטרי ) and, though I've only skimmed it, two things stood out. One was Nachman Ingbar, who threatened to resign if his decision to fund Sivan was overturned, saying:

עד שלא יוכח לי אחרת, אני צריך להתייחס גם אל מוחמד באכרי וגם אל אייל סיוון, שאישית אני מתעב את הקולנוע שלו, ולא רק זה שעוסק בשואה, מתעב אותו באופן הטוטאלי ביותר

The other was Osnat Trabelsi, who was to have co-produced Sivan's rejected film, saying:

על אייל סיוון, ועל הדיבור על האתיקה, ואני מוצאת את זה קצת לא אתי לדון בסרט, ולדון במה שיוצר עשה לא בנוכחותו, מה עוד שאייל סיוון נמצא בארץ והיה אפשר להזמין אותו לדיון הזה. אפילו אתה כשכתבת את הכתבה וחשפת כביכול את הפרשה, בחרת להתקשר אליו ולקבל ממנו תגובה, ונעשה פה בעיניי סוג של משפט ציבורי, שהוא לא נוכח בו, ואני חושבת שיש פה בעיה אתית, בעיניי אפילו בבחינת הפוסל במומו פוסל, גם הכתבה שהראיתם, שבה כאילו יש את התגובות שלו, נערכה.

אז אם אתם מבקרים את זה שהסרט שלו נערך, אז לפחות אל תעשו את אותו דבר, ואם אתם עושים את אותו דבר, אז לפחות היה צריך לומר שהכתבה היא ערוכה, כי אפשר היה לראות את זה אפילו בצורה מאוד גסה

…

אני חושבת שיש בזה קצת, נעשה פה מעשה, בעיניי, קצת לא הוגן, אני לא רוצה להתייחס למה שנעשה או למה שלא נעשה, כי אני אעדיף לעשות את זה בנוכחות אייל סיוון.

Does anyone see my problem here? Does Osnat Trabelsi not also find it unethical that Eyal Sivan's slanders against the Spielberg Archive should have been published as fact worldwide, including in Israel, without one single journalist ever contacting the Archive to ask whether it admitted the accusations of neglect or denied them outright? I will mention here one very sore point. Sivan has fallen back on a 1995 Haaretz article by Amnon Barzilai which first made the claims of neglect and is the source for Sivan's oft-quoted statement by then-Director Marilyn Koolik to the effect that although much of the trial is missing, we do have the sensational moments, so everything's alright. I happened to be in Mrs. Koolik's office when Barzilai's call came in, the day before the article appeared and am therefore the only one, other than interviewer and interviewee, who was privy to what she said. She was very pleased by Barzilai's interest (which was completely positive) and saw it as an opportunity to publicise the forthcoming digital preservation of the tapes. We were all shocked the next morning when we saw the piece and I vividly remember saying, in connection with the quote Sivan so often flaunts, "You never said that!" We walked around in shock for a while, wondering why this gratuitous and fabricated attack had taken place, till Mrs. Koolik's husband pointed out what should have been obvious, had we not been concentrating on the damage done to our own reputations: Barzilai gave very good press to Amit Breuer, Sivan's Israeli producer, who was planning to produce a film about the trial and was currently searching worldwide (the article said) for all the missing material. Whether or not Barzilai knowingly played ball (and the quote, custom-made for Sivan's purposes, indicates he was in on the game), he was doing Ms. Breuer's bidding by writing a puff piece that made her look good, while simultaneously villifying the archive that had the material she wanted to get her hands on free of charge. The plan was clearly to orchestrate such public outrage against the Archive that it would be possible to get the material away from it under cover of doing a service to the Jewish people. Sivan has pointed out that the changes he admitted making (and let's not forget he's also denied things that can be proved) were not made to the originals. Let us not forget that he did try very concertedly to get sole control of the originals. I am not claiming it was his intention to alter those had he succeeded in getting the opportunity; that is speculation and cannot be proved. But surely no one, having seen what he did in his film, would wish such a situation ever to have arisen. For Sivan to have had the opportunity to tamper with the originals that might, even theoretically, have made it almost impossible to detect what he had done because comparison of certain moments in his film with the originals would no longer reveal the crucial differences? It doesn't bear thinking about. He wanted to sue, but didn't, because his German co-producers forbade it. Certainly, their main concern was preventing headlines about a German co-production suing an Israeli archive over the Eichmann trial tapes, but two of those involved, one now deceased, told me about the kinds of mail they were getting from Sivan as a result of the decision. I haven't seen the letters, but I suspect Sivan would do almost anything to prevent their contents becoming public in his lifetime.

This is way too long, but does contain some food for thought, doesn't it?

I think Eyal Sivan can no longer pretend that he has any respect or compassion for those who survived Hitler's Europe after those remarks. Hearing the recording was not merely to hear a string of obscenities, it was also to hear the deafening clang of a mask of civilisation falling that had attempted to conceal an adolescent unreasoning hatred. Sivan later pleaded stress from the pressure of the campaign against him (he said he'd had to read lies about himself ceaselessly in the press; I'm not aware of anything untrue said against him – only for him). So, he now wants us to believe that what emerged from his mouth when he lost control is not what had been going on beneath the surface up to that point? And the fact that Rubin mentioned his father is supposed to justify it? Sivan expects everyone to lay off subjects he finds offensive, but recognises no such limits for himself when he deals with other people. The recording is a complete condemnation of Sivan on every level, but even if it's a fake (unlikely), he still deserves all the condemnation because that is the technique he himself used in "The Specialist." I think it's time to ask publicly what the relationship is between Sivan and YNET's Merav Yudilowitz. She has written a string of articles in the last month making him out to be a martyr, unquestioningly printing his version of everything, even when facts to the contrary ought to be staring her in the face (the boycott, for example). And now, she manages to write about what happened in the Knesset without ever mentioning what made the real headlines everywhere else: Sivan's use of gutter language to describe the sexual relations he claims to have had with the Holocaust survivor mother of a rival. This goes beyond biased journalism and is reminiscent (as a commenter on her latest article mentioned) of the worst excesses of Pravda under the Soviets. Something very rotten is going on here. I don't know anything about her; does she exist, or is she possibly a pseudonym of Sivan himself? And, of course, the French press continues to avoid reporting even the most scandalous misdeeds of its golden-haired boy. The French public might as well be living under Chinese, Iranian or North Korean-style censorship.

אכזבה גדולה .נראה שהמדובר בידידה אישית של סיון והיא ככל הנראה מקבלת מימנו הודעות לעיתונות שאותן היא מכניסה לוינט כפי שהן בלי לטרוח אפילו לערוך אותן .
איך אפשר לדעת זאת ?
פשוט
מאוד לפי המילים המסיימות
של הכתבה הזאת על דחיית התביעה של איל סיון
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3268634,00.html
ששם
"כותבת " הגברת יודילביץ
לגבי הפילוסוף שזכה במשפט נגד סיון "
כיום הוא נחשב כמשתייך לפלג הניאו ריאקציוניסטי לצדן של דמויות כמו ניקולה סרקוזי"
כיום הוא משתייך לפלג "הניאו ראקציוניסטי "
שום עיתונאי לא ישתמש במילים האלו לפחות לא עיתונאי רציני .
אלו מילים של פעיל מפלגתי.
הגברת יודילביץ חשפה עם המילים האלו שמרבית
הידיעה שלה היא העתקה של מילים שסיון כתב עבורה.
תמהני איך העורכים שלה בוינט לא תפסו את זה.

Wow that was strange. I just wrote an very long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn't appear.
Grrrr… well I'm not writing all that over again. Anyway,
just wanted to say excellent blog!