skinster wrote:I wonder why oh why could Lebanon possibly be opposed to Israel?
Back on topic:
I don't know, but is this bullshit you are posting called tweeting?
Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...
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skinster wrote:I wonder why oh why could Lebanon possibly be opposed to Israel?
Back on topic:
I am American, Jewish and banned from Israel for my activism
I support nonviolent boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel in order to support Palestinian rights. The move to ban me and others will backfire
This month, the Israeli government announced that activists affiliated with 20 organizations, including my organization Codepink, would be banned from entering Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories because of our support for the nonviolent boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights.
As a Jew, this causes me tremendous sadness because I have a lifetime attachment to Israel and Palestine. It also deepens my commitment to working for peace and equality for all the peoples of the region.
I first went to Israel 50 years ago, right after the June 1967 war. I was 16 years old and spent the summer living on the kibbutz Ein Gedi, right on the Dead Sea. I loved the kibbutz, where I learned about farming, communal living and socialism (yes, it was a socialist kibbutz at the time). I also learned, however, about the contempt and racism many Jews exhibited towards Palestinians and other Arabs.
I made friends with Arabs who taught me how the Jewish state had dispossessed Palestinians from their lands during Israel’s establishment, created millions of refugees who were not allowed to return, and denied basic rights to the Palestinians who remained as second-class citizens
Over the years, I have stood in solidarity with both Palestinians and Israelis trying to build a truly democratic nation. I co-founded the group Global Exchange, which has been taking delegations to the region since 1990. Unlike most trips organized by US groups, these trips take people to meet Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. They work together in the olive harvest, join efforts to stop Palestinian homes from being demolished by Israel’s ever-expanding illegal settlements, and meet with Israelis who defend Palestinian rights.
In 2002, Jodie Evans and I founded the women-led peace group Codepink, to stop the war in Iraq. Along with protesting the US’s ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, and other aspects of militarism, we have incorporated the Palestinian struggle for freedom into our agenda.
After the horrific 2009, 2012 and 2014 Israeli bombings of Gaza, we took hundreds of people to the beleaguered Gaza Strip to witness the devastating human suffering and bring critical humanitarian aid. We joined up with the international Freedom Flotillas that every year since 2010 have been sending ships to try to break the Israeli-imposed blockade of Gaza and its collective punishment of more than 1.8 million Palestinians.
We have pushed the US government to stop giving more than $3bn of our tax dollars to the Israeli government in military aid each year. We have supported courageous Palestinians such as Issa Amro and 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi who face long jail sentences for their human rights activism, and worked with wonderful Israeli groups such as Rabbis for Human Rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Coalition of Women for Peace.
In 2005, when Palestinian civil society called on the global community to support BDS as tactic to advance their struggle for freedom, justice and equality, we signed on. Over the years, we have engaged in successful advocacy campaigns, such as pushing the cosmetics company AHAVA and SodaStream to move their factories out of illegal West Bank settlements. We are also campaigning to stop AirBnB and Remax from renting and selling settlement properties.
The Palestinian-led BDS movement is fashioned after the boycott movement that helped bring down apartheid in South Africa. Its goal is to apply nonviolent economic pressure on Israel until it end its occupation of all Palestinian lands conquered in 1967, grants equal rights to Palestinian citizens of Israel, and honors United Nations resolution 194 that upholds the right of return for Palestinian refugees expelled from their homes by Israel.
Beyond the movement’s economic impact, it has transformed the discourse around Palestinian disenfranchisement and built a broader global movement. From major church denominations, academic associations and labor groups, to social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock, to pop culture icons refusing free trips to Israel, as BDS grows worldwide, Israel becomes more and more desperate to contain it. The latest effort is this blacklist of 20 pro-BDS organizations.
This new ban comes on the heels of arrests and prosecutions of nonviolent Palestinian activists who face long jail sentences. It is clear that Israel, egged on by its supporters in the Trump administration, is increasing its repression of human rights activists and critics.
This tactic, however, will only continue to make a pariah of the Israeli government. As former South African government minister Ronnie Kasrils said: “Attempts by the former South African apartheid government to discredit and threaten the BDS movement failed and backfired, only intensifying international protest which assisted in bringing down that unjust regime. Apartheid Israel is following that path.”
In the face of Israel’s increasingly draconian attempts to suppress nonviolent activists at home and abroad, we will strengthen our principled work in support of freedom and justice for all people in Israel/Palestine.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... y-activism
Arab Regimes Terrified by Israel's Freedoms
by Giulio Meotti
January 16, 2018 at 5:00 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/1166 ... l-freedoms
A prominent Tunisian-born French movie producer, Saïd Ben Saïd recently issued one of the frankest denunciations of anti-Semitism in the Arab world. The real culprit, he argued, was the prevalence of anti-Semitism fueled by Islamic extremists across the Middle East. Ben Saïd was forced to pull out of an Arab film festival last year because he had worked with Israelis.
A Lebanese director, Ziad Doueiri, did something even "worse": he filmed some scenes on Israeli land!
"No one can deny the misery of the Palestinian people, but it must be admitted that the Arab world is, in its majority, antisemitic. This hatred of Jews has redoubled in intensity and depth not because of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but with the rise of a certain vision of Islam". — Saïd Ben Saïd.
Fifty years have passed since many Arab countries were humiliated by Israel in 1967 in a war the Arabs started, with the explicit goal of destroying the Jewish State and throwing the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea. Today, Israel has solid diplomatic relations with two of these countries -- Jordan to Egypt -- while Saudi officials speak with their Israeli security counterparts about the Iranian threat.
But although the Middle East is engulfed in a new wave of internal destabilization, and Iran has recently experienced a new wave of protests in which people chanted "we don't want an Islamic Republic", the great taboo for the Arab and Muslim world is still that of cultural exchanges with the hated "Zionists".
A prominent Tunisian-born French movie producer, Saïd Ben Saïd, after being forced to pull out of North Africa's most prestigious film festival, recently issued one of the frankest denunciations of anti-Semitism in the Arab world. He revealed, in an op-ed for the French daily Le Monde, that an invitation to preside over the jury of the Carthage Film Festival had been rescinded because of his work with the Israeli film director, Nadav Lapid, and for having participated on a panel at the Jerusalem Film Festival earlier this year. The real culprit, Ben Saïd argued, was the prevalence of anti-Semitism fueled by Islamic extremists across the Middle East:
"No one can deny the misery of the Palestinian people, but it must be admitted that the Arab world is, in its majority, antisemitic... This hatred of Jews has redoubled in intensity and depth not because of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but with the rise of a certain vision of Islam".
Writers, novelists, journalists, politicians, bloggers, filmmakers: there are plenty of Arab and Muslim artists who have paid a heavy price for having broken through the iron curtain that has been put around Israel.
Amin Maalouf, who has both a Lebanese and a French passport, gave an interview to an Israeli channel, i24. Perhaps he thought that having won the Goncourt Prize (France's greatest literary recognition), having received the Legion of Honor, and being among the "Immortals" of the French Academy would have protected him. Of course it did not. Right after his interview with the television channel, requests to deprive him of his Lebanese citizenship and put him on trial began at once.
A Lebanese director, Ziad Doueiri, did something even "worse": he filmed some scenes on Israeli land! When he returned from the Venice Film Festival, the Lebanese police were waiting for him at the airport. He was arrested, interrogated for three hours, and accused of "collaborating with Israel".
Because Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri filmed some scenes in Israel, when he returned from the Venice Film Festival, Lebanese police arrested him at the airport, interrogated him for three hours, and accused him of "collaborating with Israel". (Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Palm Springs International Film Festival)
Boualem Sansal, an acclaimed Algerian writer, should have received the Prix du Roman Arabe for his book "Rue Darwin". The jury, however, who had actually selected him, later retracted the award and cancelled it. The reason? Sansal had made a trip to Jerusalem to attend an Israeli literary festival.
The great Egyptian writer Ali Salem has seen his career destroyed forever for having visited Israel. In 1994, a few months after the Oslo Accords were signed, the famous Egyptian satirical writer traveled to Israel and wrote the book, My Drive to Israel. Theaters abandoned and boycotted his plays.
The Nobel Laureate for Literature Naguib Mahfouz was persecuted by the Islamic fundamentalists, not only for his "secular spirit", but above all the support which, at the time, Mahfouz provided to President Anwar Sadat for having signed the Camp David "peace" treaty with Israel. In 1979, the Arab countries boycotted the publication of Mahfouz's novels. They are still officially unavailable in some Middle Eastern countries.
The most well-known Iranian blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, ended up in jail; he was accused of "spying for Israel." His "crime"? A visit to Israel two years earlier to "show the daily life of the Jewish people" and to expose anti-Semitic prejudices.
Even the most famous Arab poet, the Syrian Adonis, was expelled from the Arab Writers Union for having met with Israeli intellectuals in Granada during a UNESCO conference.
These Arab and Muslim regimes are terrified of Israel, a comparatively microscopic 20,000 square kilometers, compared to the 33 million square kilometers of the Arab and Muslim world. In an immense crescent that sweeps from Casablanca to Mumbai, Israel is the only free state in the region.
In Saudi Arabia, blogger Raif Badawi was imprisoned and flogged. In Jordan, the writer Nahid Hattar was murdered for "blasphemy". In Egypt, the novelist Ahmed Naji was jailed for "obscenity". And Iran increased the bounty for the murder of writer Salman Rushdie.
Israel is the only Middle Eastern state where journalists enjoy absolute freedom of expression and can safely challenge the military and government. It is a Jewish country where publishing houses translate Arab authors; the opposite does not happen in the Middle East. It is the only country where artists and writers are not censored or told by the state what to write, what not to write, or how to behave. This is what Arab and Muslim dictatorships fear: that their own artists might be "infected" by these "unruly" "Zionists".
The West, where people care about pluralism and cultural freedom, needs strongly to support these Arab and Muslim writers and artists who have dared to visit Israel and become "unruly" to boot. It means betting on freedom and progress instead of on autocracies and an artificial, failed "peace". These Arab artists are far more brave and honest of all those European pseudo-intellectuals who embrace the boycott of Israel, the only free and open country in the Middle East.
Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
Lebanon reverses ban on Spielberg film
Two days after censorship board blacklisted movie over Jewish director's support for Israel, official says screenings of 'The Post' to begin this week
By AFP and TOI staffToday, 1:14 pm
Lebanon’s interior ministry will allow the release of Steven Spielberg’s latest film, “The Post,” overturning a ban by the General Security authority, a senior official said Wednesday.
The security body had on Monday announced it was banning the Hollywood thriller to comply with an Arab League boycott targeting supporters of Israel.
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In a rare move, the interior ministry chose not to sign off on the decision by General Security, which in addition to controlling Lebanon’s borders, is responsible for censoring films, plays, and books.
“Interior Minister Nohad Mashnouk is going to allow the film to be shown,” a senior ministry official told AFP.
The company distributing the film in Lebanon confirmed that the film would be released in cinemas in Beirut and elsewhere on Thursday.
US film director Steven Spielberg poses on the red carpet on arrival for the European Premiere of his film, ‘The Post’ in London on January 10, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / Daniel LEAL-OLIVAS)
On Monday, an official from Lebanon’s General Security, which is responsible for censorship of films, plays, and books, explained the initial ban by saying that Spielberg “is blacklisted by the Arab League’s boycott office, which Lebanon complies with.”
The Hollywood giant was ruled off-limits by the Cairo-based pan-Arab body after he donated $1 million to Israel during the 2006 war between the Jewish state and Lebanon.
The two countries are still officially at war.
According to a Sunday report by The Hollywood Reporter, the initial ban of “The Post” was driven by the fact that the Jewish director had filmed some scenes of his magnum opus “Schindler’s List” in Jerusalem.
A critically acclaimed film starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, “The Post” recounts the nail-biting behind-the-scenes story of the 1971 publication by The Washington Post of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the lies behind US involvement in the Vietnam War.
Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Post.’ (Courtesy 20th Century Fox)
There was no word on the status of a second film that received the censorship ax by Lebanon this week, “Jungle,” a survival drama about Israeli adventurer Yossi Ghinsberg who got lost in an uncharted part of the Bolivian Amazon in 1981.
The film, starring Daniel Radcliffe, had been screening for two weeks in Lebanon but was pulled, an official said Monday, adding that the decision followed a number of complaints.
He did not specify their origin but a few days earlier the Lebanese branch of the Campaign to Boycott the Supporters of Israel issued a statement against “Jungle” because its main character is an Israeli, as is one of its producers.
Lebanon is divided on the boycott-driven bans, with some welcoming them as a bulwark against the “cultural normalization” of Israel.
Banned films can often be found in bootleg movie shops across the country for as little as one dollar, and even blacklisted books can sometimes be found in regular bookstores.
Agencies contributed to this report.
Lebanon Bans Steven Spielberg’s “The Post” Because Of His Support of Israel, Proving The Country Is Run By Stone Age Airheads
eliefares
https://stateofmind13.com/2018/01/15/le ... -airheads/
At the rate Lebanon’s censorship bureau has been going for the past year, the country might as well have rang in 1918 instead of 2018, because the situation has become unacceptable.
The latest victim of a censorship bureau that doesn’t want to upset what’s becoming a form of cultural terrorism in the country is Steven Spielberg’s “The Post,” a stunning drama that is absolutely VITAL to be seen today.
The reason why Lebanon has an issue with Spielberg is both anti-semitic and because of the country’s anti-Israel laws. When Spielberg’s Tintin was released, his name was struck out from the poster in order to upset anyone due to his last name’s obvious Jewish background. His name was eventually added to the blacklist of the Arab League’s Central Boycott (of Israel) Office because of a donation he made to the Zionist state in 2006.
Yes, Spielberg making donations to Israel is abhorrent, but he’s not the only Hollywood figure to do so, nor will he be the last. When and where do we draw the ridiculous line about what we ban and allow in this country when it pertains to Israel, because this sure as hell is pushing it. An American director, with no ties to the country in question except for his religion, makes a contribution to the country like thousands of other Westerners and Americans do, and he’s suddenly persona non-grata?
To make matters worse, the decision to add Spielberg to that Arab ban list occurred in 2007. He’s had countless movies released in the area since, without any form of controversy. He has been director and producer of many movies that were released without a glitch in the area. Of those movies, I list: Transformers, The BFG, Bridge of Spies, Jurrasic World, Lincoln, etc…
Over the past 10 years, Lebanon has screened SIXTEEN movies in which Spielberg was either directing or producing. And here comes 2018, with Lebanon’s BDS office finding new muscle in our government, and the country won’t be able to get any of his movies ever again.
I would call such a ban illogical, but those calling for him to be blanket banned don’t really understand logic. They are the same people who believe Gal Gadot’s existence in a movie is a covert attempt at spreading zionism into the subconscious of the Arab masses, except in Gal Gadot’s case the argument was that she was actually Israeli, whereas in Spielberg’s case, the affront is an association to the n’th degree, just to appease to some people’s hypersensitivity, but I digress.
Being in the United States, I had the pleasure to watch “The Post” in its opening weekend a few days ago. The movie, set in the 1970s, features legends Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks as the owner and editor of the Washington Post at that time, respectively, as they try to reveal government secrets about the Vietnam War, during Nixon’s White House, as he attempts to silence the press.
The movie, based on a true story, is exceedingly important in today’s day and age where freedom of speech, the press, and the important of expression are all threatened. The irony of a movie about fighting off censorship being censored in a country that is developing a knee-jerk response to anything that ruffles its feathers should not escape you.
What we have in Lebanon is a bunch of airheads in power, whose brains only function in binaries, and who can’t appreciate enough nuances to be able to distinguish between cause to ban (which should never exist, but it’s Lebanon) and not. Instead, The Post is the second movie to be banned this week after Daniel Radcliffe’s “Jungle” also receives the same fate, when it’s discovered that the screenwriter, and some of the people involved in the making of the movie are Israelis.
To expect any movie coming in from the U.S. to be Israel-free is non-sensical. To expect any media import that we get from the big bad West to be Israel free is stupid. What’s next, banning everything that breathes because of a positive opinion they have of the Jewish state? I’m willing to bet those calling for the movie to be banned have watched countless Steven Spielberg movies before.
I expect this bullshit we’re dealing with not to decrease over the next few months, but to further perpetuate like the rabid fire it’s becoming. The next Nathalie Portman movie? Forget about it. Anything featuring Gal Gadot? Forget about that either. Any Steven Spielberg movie coming up after The Post? Nope. It’s just sad.
Again, I reiterate what I’ve said countless times before. Boycotts are not bans. Boycotts add to whatever message the BDS folks want to propagate in the country, whilst bans do the exact opposite. With every single movie they cause to be banned, they lose more people who’d be willing to support them. But I guess they don’t really care about that, either.
The hypocrisy of banning movies in Lebanon because they’re an easy target should not escape anyone. There are products distributed in the market, and imprinted in everyone’s personal life, that are also related in one way or another to Israel, but BDS’ dependency on such products will never have them call for bans.
The lines that movies can’t cross in this country are increasing by the day. “Call Me By Your Name,” the year’s best movie, won’t be released because of its LGBT theme. Movies are banned because Israel. Movies are banned because they upset Christian or Muslim clergy. At this rate, there’s no point in cinema in this country anymore.
Until then, enjoy streaming the movie online or buying it for $2 at your local bootleg DVD store. The biggest loser in all of this bullshit is that Lebanese distributor, in this case Italia Films, that already bought the rights for the movie and will be losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, as did Joseph Chacra with Wonder Woman, just because we have easily-influenced entities in offices of power, without any ounce of backbone whatsoever.
[youtube]BhRdfYHC7wI[/youtube]
MUMBAI, India — In Ahmadebad, tens of thousands of people lined the street, some waving Israeli flags, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sped past, whizzing by massive billboards with his and Indian counterpart Narendra Modi’s faces plastered on them.
In rural Dev Dholera, curious farmers and others craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the prime ministers, and hundreds of young entrepreneurs and business people cheered the leaders like rock stars.
In Sabarkantha, villagers waved at the prime ministers’ helicopters as they came in to land in a former forest that had been cleared to make way for a helipad. Dancers in traditional dress did flips, and farmers told of how many rupees they had made after training at an Israel-funded agricultural center.
Wednesday’s displays of love for Israel and its leaders — some of them seemingly carefully choreographed, some apparently spontaneous — drove home the budding bromance between Netanyahu and Modi, a love affair both hope will also bloom into a tighter business and strategic relationship.
For Modi, who cut his teeth in politics as chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014, the visit was seen as personally significant, and while there had been signs welcoming Netanyahu in Delhi, Agra and Mumbai, they were smaller than the massive billboards in the northwestern Indian state.
While in other places, Netanyahu’s motorcade was at best a curiosity, in Gujarat, crowds lined streets, and songs were played in Hebrew in some places.
Foreign Ministry director Yuval Rotem said he had never seen a reception like that received by Netanyahu in all of his years in the foreign service. Netanyahu, too, said he was “moved” by the Gujaratis’ apparent infatuation with him and with Israel, and praised Modi at every opportunity.
“Modi… is catapulting it [India] into the future as one of the world’s great powers. And he is doing it through the power of innovation,” Netanyahu said during a speech.
Earlier in the day, he paid a lightning visit to the home of another former Gujarat resident, Mahatma Gandhi, praising the father of modern India as an “inspiration.”
Capping off the day on his way to Mumbai for the last leg of his trip, Netanyahu announced that he had managed to get the Spike anti-tank missile deal between the Israeli arms manufacturer Rafael and India back on track after his talks with Modi, though it was not yet clear if the deal would still carry the $500 million price tag it did before it was nixed in the lead-up to the visit.
The news of the Rafael deal quickly overshadowed the rest of the day’s events and even much of the trip’s official agenda, which is intended to broaden Israel and India’s economic relationship beyond arms and gem sales.
But before the prime minister broke the news, he and Modi highlighted innovation and agriculture, two fields in which India and Israel are hoping to expand collaboration.
Inside a well-groomed campus surrounded by dusty fields, irrigation ditches and emaciated cows in Dev Dholera, outside Ahmadebad, the two leaders inaugurated the iCreate center, an innovation hub that is part of Modi’s Start-up India scheme.
Netanyahu gifted Modi a mobile water purification buggy of the type the two had ridden in on an Israeli beach in July. He also announced the winners of a pilot project meant to match up Indian and Israeli tech companies that can complement each other, part of the $40 million Israel-India Innovation Initiative Fund.
Entering a large tent after touring some of the products developed by iCreate, the two received a standing ovation and Netanyahu was treated to raucous rounds of applause that have become a rarity for the Israeli leader beset by domestic troubles at home.
“There is an enthusiasm in India for what Israel is doing,” said an executive from a major conglomerate involved in expanding ties with the Jewish state who attended the event.
Hilly Hirt, deputy director of the Pears Program for Global Innovation, which is involved in developing the relationship, said the two countries are a “natural fit,” pointing to Israel’s experience in developing agricultural innovations that could aid a relatively poor country like India.
But one need only look at the Israeli and Indian press coverage of the visit to understand why it will take more than water-cleaning ATVs to change the calculus of the relationship. Media in the subcontinent Wednesday focused on Netanyahu and Modi’s speeches, while in Israel, push notifications rang out only when the return of the Rafael deal was announced.
Netanyahu’s last stop in Gujarat before leaving to Mumbai was a high-tech nursery in another rural area outside Ahmadebad.
skinster wrote:Thanks for your continual boosting of this thread, zionists.
skinster wrote:This is a weird thing to post after you used Wikipedia to argue a point.
I pointed out an article showing how zionists are paid to edit wikipedia. Do you have a problem with that source? I can post a video if you like, here, Israeli politicians Naftali Bennett explains how he has hasbara trolls editing Wikipedia.
Heinie wrote:While academics, professional organizations, artists, and individuals in the European Union (EU) are getting behind the movement to boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) Israel as a peaceful strategy to protest the treatment of Palestinian-Israelis, and the brutal occupation of seized territories in 1967, the Israelis have concentrated on using their diplomatic efforts to ensure that, under threat of being labeled anti-Semitic, national governments, like the English Tories, and the EU Council will remain on the side of Israel. Perhaps as an indication that BDS is proving effective, however, Israel's Internal Security Minister, Zionist Gilad Erdan, vocal critic of Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi, plans to enter the fight against the anti-Israeli boycott with his plan to appoint 10 anti-BDS coordinators to central embassies around the world.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/erdan-seeks-appointment-of-anti-bds-coordinators-around-the-world/
It looks like BDS is the way to go.
Israeli "Internal" Security Minister, Gilad Erdan, spreading his Zionsm to foreign countries
Heinie wrote:
It looks like BDS is the way to go.
Politiks wrote:Sometimes you need to read articles as a political satire to give them sense. What the bold is really saying is let's bankrupt Israel and call it peaceful. Reminds you of a fairly recent reverse methodology? Something like religion of peace?
Bringing it on BDS. What should we call what EU did to Greece?
at being called a neocon, of all things. That made my morning.Netanyahu was at "Shalom Bollywood" event in Mumbai, where top stars from the industry were present, including Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan, and filmmaker Karan Johar.
"I want everyone in Indian and Israel to know about the phenomenal friendship between our countries. So I've an idea.
One of the most viral pictures took place at the Oscars where several celebrities took a selfie together," he said.
"So I want all the Bollywood actors, directors, producers present here to join me right now for a selfie so millions of people can see the great friendship between the two countries," Netanyahu added.
Posing for the selfie were Bollywood guests like Bachchan and his family, Johar, Randhir Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi, Sara Ali Khan, filmmaker Imtiaz Ali, Madhur Bhandarkar, Nikkhil Advani, Abhishek Kapoor, Subhash Ghai, lyricist Prasoon Joshi among others.
Aishwarya along with producer Ronnie Screwvala welcomed the prime minister and the first lady, Sara Netanyahu.
Karan Johar's production "Drive" became the first Bollywood film to be shot in Israel for which Johar along with Dharma Productions CEO Apoorva Mehta were felicitated by Netanyahu.
At the event, Bachchan gave the keynote address where he spoke about how, from a time when acting in films was looked down upon, today Bollywood has become a parallel culture.
Bachchan, 75, said when "we as a community watch films in a darkened hall, we never ask the caste or creed, or colour or religion of the person sitting next to us. We enjoy the same film, laugh at the same joke, cry at the same emotion. In a world where we see humanity disintegrating in front of us, cinema is perhaps (among) the few yet prominent entities that bring people together."
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