Natalie Portman Strikes Back

Back to the Moslem Terrorist's Page

washingtonpost.com
By Lloyd Grove
Washington Post Staff Writer

Lovely Natalie Portman is gearing up for the May 12 premiere of "Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones," in which she plays Senator Padme Amidala, but this week the 20-year-old Harvard junior is focusing on earthbound conflicts.

On Wednesday, the Jerusalem-born actress objected tartly in the Harvard Crimson to law student Faisal Chaudhry's April 11 essay on U.S. policy concerning Israel and the Palestinians. Chaudhry framed the Arab-Israeli violence as "Israel's racist colonial occupation" in which "white Israeli soldiers destroy refugee camps of the brown people they have dispossessed for decades."

Natalie Portman in the upcoming "Star Wars: Episode II--Attack of the Clones." Industrial Light & Magic - Lucasfilm, LTD. via AP

Portman, who immigrated to the United States with her family in 1988 and lived briefly in Washington, wrote to the student newspaper that Chaudhry's racial rhetoric "is a distortion of the fact that most Israelis and Palestinians are indistinguishable physically. The Israeli government itself is comprised of a great number of Sephardic Jews, many of whom originate from Arab countries. The chief of staff of the army, the minister of defense, the minister of finance . . . and the president of Israel are all 'brown.' One might have an idea of the physical likeness between Arabs and Israelis by examining this week's Newsweek cover on which an 18-year-old female Palestinian suicide bomber and her 17-year-old female Israeli victim could pass for twins."

Portman continued: "Outrageous and untrue finger-pointing is a childish tactic that disregards the responsibility of all parties involved."

Yesterday the 25-year-old Chaudhry speculated that the Crimson published the letter only because Portman is a movie star. (She signed it with her family name, which is well known on campus, and we agreed to her request not to publish it here.) But the Crimson's editorial page editor, David DeBartolo, told us: "We thought that it was a very good letter on its own. It presented an important point of view. Basically, we ran the letter on the merit of its contents."

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

Israeli Diversity Shown Even Among Leaders

By NATALIE HERSHLAG

Originally published on Wednesday, April 17, 2002 in the Opinion section of The Harvard Crimson.

To the editors:

Faisal Chaudhry writes of the American and Israeli desire to “reconstruct the ideological framework” of the Middle East situation, while creatively framing the same article with a conversion into a “white” vs. “brown” struggle (Op-Ed, “An Ideology of Oppression,” April 11). At one point, Chaudhry even compares the situation to apartheid. This is a distortion of the fact that most Israelis and Palestinians are indistinguishable physically.

The Israeli government itself is comprised of a great number Sephardic Jews, many of whom originate from Arab countries. The chief of staff of the army, the minister of defense, the minister of finance (who is the new leader of the labor party) and the president of Israel are all “brown.” One might have an idea of the physical likeness between Arabs and Israelis by examining this week’s Newsweek cover on which an 18-year-old female Palestinian suicide bomber and her 17-year-old female Israeli victim could pass for twins.

Israelis and Arabs are historically cousins. Until we accept the fact that we are constituents of the same family, we will blunder in believing that a loss for one “side”—or, as Chaudhry names it, a “color”—is not a loss for all human kind.

Outrageous and untrue finger-pointing is a childish tactic that disregards the responsibility of all parties involved, including Europe, the Arab nations and the United States, along with Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

We must be ashamed of every act of violence and mourn every child as if they were our own. I pray for the safety of all those in the region and hope that we may someday use our unique human assets of language and empathy rather than military technology or propaganda to resolve this conflict.

Natalie Hershlag ’03

April 12, 2002

Copyright © 2001, The Harvard Crimson Inc. All rights reserved.