Gibson's New Gig -- Yom Kippur Keynote Speaker?

76. Benjamin -- do you really think Muslim hatred of Jews started in 1948? This goes back to Esau and his stolen birthright -- Ishmael and his usurped birthright. Initially, Muhamed initially reached out to Jews and Christians, stating that these faiths all built on the same laws, same principals, same God. But when Jews rejected him, it caused him to lash out against Jews as "pigs and monkeys". Muslim anti-semitism, as well as western anti-semitism, has been around much longer than the last half century.

As for Mel, I think he will accept this offer. He has much amends to make, and he certainly won't want to lose Jewish viewership (if there is any left after Passion). But I also agree with Lola, that his biggest problem isn't the remarks -- but the drunk driving. If there were stricter penaltis on celebrities for this type of irresponsible activity, it would certainly set a better example for the public, and perhaps save hundreds of lives.

Posted at 2:15AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by Sam

77. What about Paris and Paris ..Hit a car and run.. 2 days on the ET.. Gone.. and you want to hang Mel..and let this hang on ..... Please
People..

Posted at 2:21AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by cheryl

78. benjamin, r & John, and all others like you. Your comments are not only false and hateful, but disgusting. This is America. We have freedom of speech and religion, a Constitution, a Bill of Rights, and full access to unadulterated history. Our soldeirs have fought and died to protect our civil rights. You have each proven to be as narrow-minded and unwilling to respect our Constitution as Gibson, whom I USED to admire as a good actor. As to hwho cares what he says: He's a major public figure, and is influential and wealthy, which is why what he says gets so much airplay. As to Arab-Israeli relations: That dumb islamo-fascist comment about Israeli independence in 1948 is historically WRONG -- the Brits supported the Arabs, not the Jews, did less than nothing f them during WWII, and the Arabs left Israel at their own ARAB leaders' urging, not Israel's. They've LOST every war with Israel, despite all odds (money, numbers, etc.), because of their hatred, diviseness and immorality. Next, as far as Gibson being right: Does Gibson really own Malibu? Certainly Jews are not responsible for all the warsof the world. Was Alexander the Great inspired by the Jews? How about Attilla the Hun? The Crusdades? The Russo-Japanese War? The American Revolution? The Chinese massacres in Tibet? The Hutu/Tutsi wars? The destruction of the Incan and Mayan people? The Korean War? Need I go on? (I suppose that since Jesus was Jewish, maybe Gibson has a point. Lots of wars have been initiatied in the name of Christ and the Holy Trinity.) And oh, I guess movie directors and producers who just happen to be Jewish, and Jewish movie-goers, didn't help Gbson in his career at all. Yeah, he's so right. People like you are even dumber and more un-American than he is. In the meantime, our troops are fighting and dying to protect your ignorant, sorry butts. Shame on you. And you call yourselves Americans? Get an education and read. Our tax dollars are paying for it.

Posted at 2:28AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by Christina

79. Well personally it looks to me like, what we have is some reporters out in Hollywood and the like,, who just want to attempt to hang any Actor who says anything, so they can make an attempt to ruin their careers and so that reporter can see their name in lights and get their 15 minutes of fame themselves !!!!! Also because Mr. Gibson has expressed dismay with the current Corrupt and Fraudulent President and the war in Iraq, this is another attempt by the NEO-CON Republicans to shut those up who xpress outrage and anger over the way their half-assedly running this country and the war in Iraq !!!!!! This is making way to Big of a deal over what Mr. Gibson said !!!! I distinctively remember a certain Political Figure standing on board an Aircraft Carrier, and declaring we've won this war,,, ,, NOW almost 2-3 years later, almost 2600 of our American troops are dead !!!!!!! I don't see any Reporters Hammering all over that,, Why ????????? If theres a Reporter who really wants to make a name for himself,,, why don't they try Investigating where all the Multi-Billions of US-Tax Payer Dollars are going over in Iraq, and why Millions of Dollars are unaccounted for,,, Trace and follow that money trail !!!!!!!! Its time these reporters start doing some serious and Professional Reporting,, instead of reporting what some TV Movie Star used to wipe their A**,,, the General Public could really care less !!!!!! Only you people out in Hollywood, who don't really have anything better to do, and obviously lead quite boring lives,, live eat and breath this Gossipy Crapoloa,, hoping to make a name for yourselvs,,, get a Life !!!!!!!! Leave Mel Alone and get off his A** !!!!!! Should be consentrating on that Tyrant in Office, and those Corrupt Oil Executives, instead of all this non-sense !!!!!!! Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein,, didn't have to stoop this low to make a Name for themselves,,but thats the Difference between a real reporter and these half-assed reporters we have now days !!!!!!!! The" Patroit"- - somewhere in the USA ! ! ! !

Posted at 2:35AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by The"Patroit" ! ! !

80. Catholic whining:

http://www.americamagazine.org/gettext.cfm?articleTypeID=1&textID=1588&issueID=361

Oh boo hoo hoo! How dare you be anti-Catholic!

Posted at 2:51AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by Kat

81. Catholic Atrocities:

-- In the Third Crusade, after Richard the Lion-Hearted captured Acre in 1191, he ordered 3,000 captives -- many of them women and children -- taken outside the city and slaughtered. Some were disemboweled in a search for swallowed gems. Bishops intoned blessings. Infidel lives were of no consequence. As Saint Bernard of Clairvaux declared in launching the Second Crusade: "The Christian glories in the death of a pagan, because thereby Christ himself is glorified."

-- In 1209, Pope Innocent III launched an armed crusade against Albigenses Christians in southern France. When the besieged city of Beziers fell, soldiers reportedly asked their papal adviser how to distinguish the faithful from the infidel among the captives. He commanded: "Kill them all. God will know his own." Nearly 20,000 were slaughtered -- many first blinded, mutilated, dragged behind horses, or used for target practice.

-- The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 proclaimed the doctrine of transubstantiation: that the host wafer miraculously turns into the body of Jesus during the mass. Soon rumors spread that Jews were stealing the sacred wafers and stabbing or driving nails through them to crucify Jesus again. Reports said that the pierced host bled, cried out, or emitted spirits. On this charge, Jews were burned at the stake in 1243 in Belitz, Germany -- the first of many killings that continued into the 1800s. To avenge the tortured host, the German knight Rindfliesch led a brigade in 1298 that exterminated 146 defenseless Jewish communities in six months.

-- Also during the 1200s, the hunt for Albigensian heretics led to establishment of the Inquisition, which spread over Europe. Pope Innocent IV authorized torture. Under interrogation by Dominican priests, screaming victims were stretched, burned, pierced and broken on fiendish pain machines to make them confess to disbelief and to identify fellow transgressors. Inquisitor Robert le Bourge sent 183 people to the stake in a single week.

-- When the Black Death swept Europe in 1348-1349, rumors alleged that it was caused by Jews poisoning wells. Hysterical mobs slaughtered thousands of Jews in several countries. In Speyer, Germany, the burned bodies were piled into giant wine casks and sent floating down the Rhine. In northern Germany Jews were walled up alive in their homes to suffocate or starve. The Flagellants, an army of penitents who whipped themselves bloody, stormed the Jewish quarter of Frankfurt in a gruesome massacre. The prince of Thuringia announced that he had burned his Jews for the honor of God.

-- In the 1400s, the Inquisition shifted its focus to witchcraft. Priests tortured untold thousands of women into confessing that they were witches who flew through the sky and engaged in sex with the devil -- then they were burned or hanged for their confessions. Witch hysteria raged for three centuries in a dozen nations. Estimates of the number executed vary from 100,000 to 2 million. Whole villages were exterminated. In the first half of the 17th century, about 5,000 "witches" were put to death in the French province of Alsace, and 900 were burned in the Bavarian city of Bamberg. The witch craze was religious madness at its worst.

- In 1801 Orthodox priests in Bucharest, Romania, revived the story that Jews sacrificed Christians and drank their blood. Enraged parishioners stormed the ghetto and cut the throats of 128 Jews.

-- In 1983 in Darkley, Northern Ireland, Catholic terrorists with automatic weapons burst into a Protestant church on a Sunday morning and opened fire, killing three worshipers and wounding seven. It was just one of hundreds of Catholic-Protestant ambushes that have taken 2,600 lives in Ulster since age-old religious hostility turned violent again in 1969.

-The Catholic and Protestant Churches in Germany set the foundation for WWII and the atrocities to occur. Popes, priests and nuns supported Hitler's regime. Indeed, Hitler could not have come to power without Christianity's help.

-Catholic apologists attempt to downplay the significance of the Inquisition saying that relatively few people were ever directly affected. While controversy rages around the number of victims that can be claimed by the Inquisition, conservative estimates easily place the count in the MILLIONS.

-In the last 15 years, the Catholic church has paid $1 billion in hush money to victims who, as children, were molested or raped by their priests. Instead of removing these priests from their positions as they should have done, the hierarchy decided that the best course of action would be to simply move them from one parish to another.

And for those who claim Hitler was a Jew, or at the very least not Christian.....

Myth: Hitler was not a Christian

Hitler was born and baptized into Catholicism

His Jewish antisemitism came from his Christian background.

His early personal notes shows his interest in religion and Biblical views.

He believed that the Bible represented the history of mankind.

His Nazi party platform (their version of a constitution) included a section on Positive Christianity, and he never removed it.

He confessed his Christianity.

He tried to establish a united Reich German Church.

Hitler allowed the destruction of Jewish synagogues and temples, but not Christian churches.

He encouraged Nazis to worship in Christian churches.

He spoke of his Christian beliefs in his speeches and proclamations.

His contemporaries, friends, Protestant ministers and Catholics priests, including the Vatican, thought of Hitler as a Christian.

The Catholic Church never excommunicated Hitler. He died a Catholic.

To ignore the evidence of Hitler's Christianity demonstrates how power of belief can obscure the facts.

Posted at 3:09AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by Kat

82. http://melgibsonskids.ytmnd.com/


HA HA HA HA

Posted at 3:52AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by Goon

83. What is the issue, much worst things have been said about other cultures and religions. Get over it, how many people, friends or you have been pissed and said something you regreted.

Posted at 3:55AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by Rod

84. Mel Gibson's behavior sounds consistent with bipolar disorder.

Posted at 4:40AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by Vance

85. I just don't understand why the media is making this out to be such a big deal! Mel Gibson is more than likely embarrassed by his remarks while drunk. And goodness, is someone out "to get him" and ruin his life??? He is sorry, drop it. Hasn't anyone ever been drunk and the next day sorry for what they said and how they acted the night before? Gosh, give it up, media. More important things going on in the world.............

Posted at 5:04AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by shirlo

86. I am ok with you shirlo

Posted at 5:30AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by Pasdbol

87. I believe mel Gibson's apology was sincere and indeed it is about time a celebrity took responsibility for their actions, he not only owned up to his actions but made a public confession of his struggle with alcoholism. It is a shame that anyone of the religious communities would even ask Mel Gibson for anything. They would have gotten there aplogy I imagine without having to ask for it, then wanting him to speak? So does Mel Gibson have to give over his first born son? I doubt that would be good enough now would it? This seems like a scene from "The godfather". He messed up, he got drunk, he said and did stupid things, like every other person breathing in this world. He said he is grateful he didn't hurt or kill anyone while behind the wheel, and truly that is what matters the most is it not?

Posted at 6:10AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by P.N.

88. Mel Gibson is the victim here.

Posted at 6:13AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by al

89. "CRUCIFY him, CRUCIFY him!"

Posted at 6:31AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by Bill Bart

90. Benjamin, thank you for posting your views and rationnale. Now Benjamin and Richard, you bring the issue of Israel and middle east into this, but it is not about Israel for me. I have nothing to do with Israel. Never been there, my heart is not there, and I do not agree with the voilance from Israeli's any more than I agree with the violance from anyone else in that region. But middle east atrocities do come into the picture for me. See I had the misfortune of being born jewish in Iran. At age 6 I was warned by my mother to not reveal my religion at school. Maybe it was the beating her cousin had received at school by peers for being jewish, or the teacher who picked on her in class for being jewish, or my older sister being teased and excluded from birthday parties once she missed a day of school due to Yom Kippur (day of attonement, 25 hours of no eating or drinking and of praying and asking for forgiveness). At age 8, I cried all the way home when I could not convince a schoolmate that jews do not make Passover meal with the blood of muslim children. Age 10, I was denied admission to the gifted school in Tehran even though I passed the entrance exam, the reason given: it would be difficult for a jew to attend a school that required the study of Islam. Age 11, a girl told me that she could not be my friend any more because "jews are filthy, mind body and soul" after her father (a store owner) found out that my family was jewish, because indication of religion is mandatorily written on the identification papers (and birth records) of every jew in Iran. Same year my best friend found "long live Adolf Hitler" painted on the wall of their new house. Age 12, tapped a girl on her shoulder, and she wiped the location rigourously, as though she had become in contact with a contaminant. Same year, my father was warned that plenty trouble could be made for a jew who did not want to sell his laboratory willingly by his competitors, and short after he did not give in, he was taken in for questioning on false reports of medical practice and for not having a picture of Ayatolla Khomaini hanging in his lab. He was released the same day, but he got the message. Fortunately, after almost 7 years of applying for a passport, change of leadership resulted in provision of passport for my mother, sister. This was unusual, as jews are not normally permitted to leave Iran. We jumped on it, even though my father was denied a passport, hoping that he could buy a fake one and join us later. We came to America as refugees, for what I mentioned and much more. My father never made it. He died, and to this day we are not certain what happened. We became US citizens, and take pride in America. I am married to an American jewish man, and my best friend is a Christian originally from Rumania. Other close friendships I have kept from high school till now consist of a muslim originally from Afganistan, Christian Americans with Chinese, German, Lation America, Italian, and mixed European ancestorial backgrounds, a Christian originally from Korea, a Muslim originally from Lebenon, and a Jew from Iran. I feel safe in America. But when I hear comments like that of Mel Gibson when he was drunk, I am 8 years old and in tears again and 12 and scared for my family all at the same time. I want to cry out to Mel Gibson and ask him: what war have I or my family ever caused? What does getting arrested for drunk driving have to do with the religion I was born into? I want to throw out the Mel Gibson movies I own, and to not ever see another one of his movies again. And then he appologizes, and asks for help in healing. That gives me pause. No one who terrorized, defamed, shunned, threatened, or otherwise wronged me or my family in Iran for being jewish ever appologized or thought that they should. Then I hear the rabi's proposal and the link to the day of attonement. That reminds me of all the sermons of forgiveness I have heard every year on Yom Kippur, and of how important it is to both ask for and to grant forgiveness. And I think to myself that I will forgive him on Yom Kippur (about one month away), and I will attone for being mad at him for the pain that others had caused me in the past who reflected that mentality. So, Randy and Mel Fan: the rabi's proposal is not only directly linked to Mel Gibson's request for help in healing, but it is also a reminder to the Jewish community that when someone asks for forgiveness, it heals the soul of both the person who asks for it and the person who grants it.

Posted at 6:55AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by Shahrzad Charlotte F.