Following are excerpts from an Iranian TV documentary series on Zionist themes in Hollywood cinema. The program, which focused on the film "Fiddler on the Roof," aired on IRINN on May 22, 2008.
Narrator: For two decades, during the 1960s and 1970s, the Zionist regime and its imperialist supporters faced many crises of legitimacy. Some of these crises were the result of the exposure of the terrifying image of this regime, when it used its war machine in the Six-Day War. Other crises were due to the fact that the struggle of the Muslims in the occupied lands and against Zionist strongholds in Europe focused the attention of the world on Palestinian suffering. So the cinematic propaganda machine of the Zionists focused on falsifying history, and on portraying the Jewish minorities as oppressed, for the benefit of the bloodthirsty, aggressive Zionists.
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Iranian film critic Majid Shah-Hosseini: [The messages] in a film like "Fiddler on the Roof" are hidden deeper, and it is more sentimental and romantic [than other films], but it strongly defends the Jews and the view that they are oppressed. By the way, this film was directed by Norman Jewison, a Jew.
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Narrator: The film "Fiddler on the Roof" tries to conceal one of the reasons for European and American hatred of Zionism, which was their control of the resources of wealth and power. The film depicts the Zionist immigrants' forefathers as kind and poor people, who immigrated out of poverty, and not out of a desire to occupy [Palestine].