The Middle East Crisis, According to Woody Allen

By Rachel X. Landes July 21, 2014

The situation in Gaza is ?a terrible, tragic thing. Innocent lives are lost left and right, and it?s a horrible situation that eventually has to right itself,? Woody Allen declared in an interview about his new movie, Magic in the Moonlight.

Asked about the Israel-Palestine conflict, Allen explained, ?I feel that the Arabs were not very nice in the beginning? The Jews had just come out of a terrible war where they were exterminated by millions and persecuted all over Europe, and they were given this tiny, tiny piece of land in the desert.

?If the Arabs had just said, ?Look, we know what you guys have been through, take this little piece of land and we?ll all be friends and help you,? and the Jews came in peace, but they didn?t. They were not nice about it.?

Allen concluded that ?there?ve been public relations mistakes, actual mistakes, and it?s been a terrible, terrible cycle of mismanagement and bad faith.?

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO