BDS--PLEASE BOYCOTT, ME - AUGUST 28, 2015

It’s not enough that some countries have banned some of my books; I need a real boycott, like the gift Matisyahu got.

Why him and not me? Why make him (more) rich and famous and leave me scratching?

The boycott against Matisyahu did wonders for him. That’s all people are talking about. After BDS succeeded and then FAILED to stop him from performing in Spain, his fame hit the roof. People ran to his defense. People saw the BDS trolls for what they are – a group of thugs feeding off crazed Jew-hatred.

People saw them, finally, as window smashers, scofflaws, delinquents…beer hall goons who use bullying as a tactic to sell their phony grievances. For once the world took notice and responded with disdain and disgust, and rallied against baseless hatred.

That doesn’t happen often enough but one step at a time will have to do.

People saw the BDS trolls for what they are – a group of thugs feeding off crazed Jew-hatred.
People (like me) who knew no reggae and who never heard of this Jewish performer, Matisyahu, suddenly hoisted him on their shoulders.  

His popularity zoomed and his wealth, I am sure, doubled…overnight. His albums must be selling like crazy.

My books are doing okay, but nothing like that! I could use the coverage. I could use the backlash and thus the marketing that a boycott would bring.

I am just as Jewish and pro-Israel as he is – so where am I going wrong? 

Where is MY boycott?  

I have friends who are writers and filmmakers but struggling. They could also use some of that boycott magic.

The latest BDS stunt, the try that failed in Spain, did more to help Matisyahu and the cause in favor of Zionism than anything even Madison Avenue could dream up. What beautiful advertising. The caper backfired so badly that even BDS’ fellow travelers were forced back into the shadows….for the time being.

But it’s too late to hide for shame.

Soon the campuses will have BDS figured out.

In any case, where do I sign up? I’m ready for my close-up.

My pro-Israel credentials are all over the place. Read my columns. Read my books. I’m your kind of guy, a guy you should love to boycott, divest and sanction.

This just in…

I was invited to do a book signing in my neighborhood in Greenwich Village. I turned it down. I always do. I don’t do book signings.

For two reasons. One, I am not the type. That simple. I figure people will buy my books or they won’t.

Two, a concern, a nightmare, that only a small number of people will show up. All writers fear this.

But I could be talked into it if I could be assured that you guys, you BDS creeps, would come out publicly against my books.

I could use the favor. I am sure that if you picket me big time, book buyers will be lining up in droves.

Slowly, but it’s happening. People are wising up. Not so fast are they buying the blaspheming of Israel.

The BDS merchandising of hatred has grown entirely too stale.

New York-based author and bestselling Novelist Jack Engelhard writes aregular column for Arutz Sheva. Website: www.jackengelhard.com

MY FELLOW AMERICANS - WE'VE GOT A PROBLEM - AUGUST 23,2015

Fellow voters – this can’t be all there is!

The question for Hillary is where she’ll be spending the next four to eight years – in the White House or in prison.

That puts all the rest of us in quite a fix. So here’s the plan.

Maybe we should elect two presidents, one to rule the Democrats, the other for Republicans and other law-abiding citizens.

Split the country down the middle, where it sits anyway, and have both presidents serve simultaneously.

Makes sense to me because what’s going on right now, well it ain’t working.

So what if what I’m proposing is unconstitutional? The people running our USA right now are paying no mind to the Constitution anyway. Obama has been so divisive that we’re already a nation divided, split down the middle, each half tugging in opposite directions.

We’ve stopped talking to one another. What’s the use? The Left (Democrats) speak a language we don’t know. They hear a heart beating and call it a fetus.

One Republican, Jeb Bush, uses as his sidekick James (“F” the Jews) Baker. That’s his choice for foreign policy adviser. Why not Farrakhan?

Of course my dual presidency plan won’t happen, but something’s got to give. Last night I got a call from an old friend. He is a scientific genius. Lately, though, some memory lapses. So he says, “Well, four more months and it’s over. We can breathe again if we get it right this time.”

“Jim, what are you talking about?”

“January we get a new President, no?”

“No, Jim, next January, 2016.”

“Oh brother – can we survive the next 16 months?”

That, my fellow Americans, is the big question. The man running the show for all of us, whatever our political affiliation, has summed up his entire legacy by placing us at the brink and at the mercy of ayatollahs who are preparing to wipe us off the map – the United States together with the State of Israel.

He gave Iran the map and the keys to the bomb.

At Friday night’s Trump rally in Mobile, Alabama thousands cheered for Israel. {At Obama’s Democratic National Convention, they booed Israel.}

The stadium rocked when Trump said, “Israel? I love Israel.” He surely loves America.

Our only hope is to somehow hang on (for dear life) until the right person takes over. Someone who is on our side.

Almost anybody will do.

Well, not quite.  

From among 300 million Americans somehow it gets no better than Clinton or Bush.

For him it goes like this: “Hi, my name is Bush and I’m running for President because my name is Bush.”

For her it’s like this: “Hello, suckers. You’re stuck with me. Now what are you going to do! 

Ha ha ha ha ha.”

For the first time a lame duck is running for office. 

She is so shady, so corrupt that even CNN talked about “buyer’s remorse.”

For the safety of classified information and for the good of the country, Hillary needs to be locked up.

The Republicans better get their act together – and fast. If it’s Trump, let it be Trump.

But somebody has to step up. We are a sinking ship, this country.

Trump’s pitch is that we are drowning with illegal immigrants. Who can argue? They can, Geraldo and even Bush. To them all immigrants are alike, even those jumping the fence and dumping their newborns to claim birthright citizenship. No, that is not immigration. That’s infiltration.

Anchor babies are legit? All signs point to the proposition that the 14th Amendment was meant to protect former slaves and Native Americans, only.

We need to get Trump or any other Republican in office (except Bush) before we get swamped at the polls by an invasion of foreign Democrats.

It’s getting late and 2016 can’t come too soon.

New York-based author and bestselling Novelist Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. Website: www.jackengelhard.com

NATALIE PORTMAN'S BAD HAIR DAY - AUGUST 25, 2015

First let’s remember that in Hollywood there is nothing worse than a bad hair day.

Next – there is something about West Coast movie people that is not quite right. They are so good at what they do when they read lines that somebody else wrote. But thinking for yourself is quite another skill, and that’s where we find Natalie Portman in remarks without a script.

The bred-in-Jerusalem Oscar-winning beauty told Britain’s The Independent that Jews ought to stop kvetching about the Holocaust. The Shoah is not so special. Other people suffer, too, like the Rwandans and their Genocide – and how about the pain and suffering when two starlets show up at the Oscars wearing the same gown!

She didn’t put it quite like that, but when I read her remarks I thought maybe I’m not seeing straight, that it was Mahmoud Abbas being quoted. The leader of the PA thugs is a famous Holocaust denier. 

Natalie is not that – but too close for comfort. Israel bashing is not enough? We need this?

All participants in the industry must think alike, or else – or else it’s sitcoms.
We need this from a Hollywood starlet who used to go around praising Israel and her Jerusalem childhood?

In her defense, the obvious – she is beautiful and beautiful people have certain rights, like the right to be clueless. But she earned a degree in psychology from Harvard, so ignorance won’t do as an excuse. So it must be Hollywood. All participants in the industry must think alike, or else – or else it’s sitcoms.

Upon arrival at any dream factory they school you into Group Conformity and Proper Liberal Orthodoxy. Casting no longer begins at the couch but with the question, “How do you feel about Obama?” Check “love him” if you want the part and a career.

Next question: “What TV news channel do you watch?” CNN is acceptable. But MSNBC is better.

If you say “Fox” say Sayonara.

So imagine the brainwashing she endured, our Natalie. No joke. To go from I Left My Heart in Jerusalem to trifling the Holocaust, someone must have done quite a job on her. So I am willing to cut her some slack. She misspoke. She was misquoted. She got up late. A heel broke. The director was being nasty.

David Lean never spoke to actors as people. He considered them a different (lower) caste. I don’t agree.

Despite it all, I choose to suspend judgment on Natalie Portman. She is too attractive, too talented, too Israeli to dislike.

She deserves a chance to rethink and to beg forgiveness. Our High Holy Days are coming up. There are plenty of synagogues in town.

Only trouble is, many of them are run by the same “rabbis” who publicly supported Obama’s Iran Nuke 

Deal, a recipe for genocide upon the heads of both the United States and Israel. Even Rwanda. That is another reason to go easy on Natalie. She is only part of the problem.

She is but the latest in this outbreak of foolishness, this epidemic of betrayal that has gripped our people.

At least she’s beautiful. What’s their excuse?

New York-based author and bestselling novelist Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. His novel “Indecent Proposal” was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. His latest thriller is “The Bathsheba Deadline.” Website: www.jackengelhard.com

THROW BACK THURSDAY - SPIELBERG IS NO FRIEND TO ISRAEL - DECEMBER 5, 2005

You never want to be labeled a fan of Israel in today’s Hollywood

Jack Engelhard - Ynet News  December 5, 2005

It remains to be seen, literally, if Steven Spielberg has switched sides, from kosher ("Schindler's List"), to treyf. His movie, "Munich," will be opening in a few days and early word has it that he has indeed gone "Hollywood." This means that he's joined the trend to the Left, and that's the way to go if you want to do lunch in that town again.

If advance screenings prove accurate (the movie is set to open December 23), Spielberg has used the Olympic Massacre of 1972 to send a message that brings to mind the words of MGM tycoon Louis B. Mayer: "Movies are for entertainment. If you want to send a message, send a telegram."

Regardless, Spielberg's message is that the bad guys who murdered 11 Israelis are not all that bad, and that the Israeli secret services that pursued the killers, the good guys, are not all that good. They're troubled by second thoughts. There isn't much difference, according to Spielberg's telegram, between killers and avengers.

Observers of our culture may conclude that Spielberg has bought an even bigger script than the one at hand, featuring moral equivalency as a sub-title.

No doubt Spielberg is serious, and that's the problem. People aren't buying popcorn as much as they used to and altogether box office numbers are down. People want to laugh, or cry. They don't want to be sold. I know this from experience. I still get questions about "Indecent Proposal." Why did I let Hollywood make those changes?

Well, when you sell a novel to Hollywood it's gone with the wind. Hemingway suggested that we (writers) throw our novels over the Hollywood border, grab the money and run. That's more or less what I did.

The interior voice of my novel - "what would you do for a million dollars – would you sell your wife for a night?" - was the Arab-Israeli conflict, mostly on the side of Israel. For Paramount Pictures, that was too much of a message, so they made changes, and guess what, I agree.

What about Exodus?

Or rather, I agreed then, not so much now. For some time I've asked this question - would Leon Uris get "Exodus" to the screen in this climate? I keep coming up with the same answer. No! Things have changed and not only for movies but for books as well. Again, personal experience, as with my latest, "The Bathsheba Deadline," that's running as a serial on Amazon.com. Lucky for me that Amazon.com came along, the largest of them all put together.

But not so fast. The novel was turned down by a dozen New York publishers for being too pro USA and much too Jewish, too pro-Israel. One top publisher said it plainly, or half plainly: "I really got caught up in your novel; enjoyed it very much; powerful stuff. But I will not make an offer, and I think you know why."

Yes, I knew why and I know why.

Don't look at me. A thousand other writers of my persuasion have had similar brush-offs from New York and Hollywood. Tom Clancy writes a novel that features Arabs as the bad guys, but Hollywood, for reasons of sensitivity or box office, conveniently changes these villains to neo-Nazis. "The Sum of all Fears" may well have been titled "The Fear of all Sums."

French-Israeli filmmaker Pierre Rehov travels deep into jihad territory, exposes the universe that indulges and glorifies terrorism, and he's been getting some attention, but he is struggling to find a major distributor for his eye-opening documentaries.

Spielberg has no such problems, first because he's Spielberg, and second, in the case of "Munich," he's produced a baby that Barbra Streisand, Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Stone could love - and these people can do lunch in Hollywood any time they want, and maybe that's what it's all about.

Telegrams should go back and forth

In Hollywood today, where David is Goliath and Goliath is David, you never want to be labeled a conservative or a fan of Israel. Hollywood is all about being trendy and Israel is not the trend. You won't get invited to the right parties and you won't win any Oscars if your heart bleeds for a nation that is always on the verge of being wiped off the map.

My problem? If Uris could not get "Exodus" funded in an atmosphere that still reeks of "Durban" (and where is the movie about all that, Steve?) then Spielberg should not be green-lighted for "Munich." Sure, Hollywood, go ahead, make your day. Show us their side of the story, but what about our side?

Where is the counterpoint? If you are trending toward political themes, yes, that is your right, but where is our Right, in which decidedly I mean the Right side of politics that has us walking with a target on our backs, meaning those of us who differ on moral equivalency and other trends?

Jews pioneered Hollywood. If, as our enemies say, we own Hollywood, well, here's the plot twist - we have lost Hollywood, and we have lost Spielberg. Spielberg is no friend of Israel. Spielberg is no friend of truth. His "Munich" may just as well have been scripted by George Galloway.

Yes, Hollywood, send a telegram, but, to communicate and to get the message fair and straight, telegrams should go back and forth.

Jack Engelhard is the author of the bestselling novel and movie "Indecent Proposal"

BDS CAUGHT BEING TOO ANTI-SEMETIC – MATISYAHU WINS. THE PAIN IN SPAIN.....AUGUST 20, 2015

It appears that there’s a limit to anti-Semitism, so far as how much of it people can take.

Even anti-Semites can’t always swallow it in one lump. As everybody knows by now, reggae star Matisyahu was banned from performing at a big time reggae festival in Spain, this after BDS contacted the show’s sponsors, Rototom Sunsplash, with startling news. Matisyahu is Jewish.

So therefore do what comes naturally – boycott.

Apparently, this Jewish American artist is big in reggae circles. Jews and everybody else around the world cried foul, and Matisyahu was re-invited.

Spain apologized, the organizers blushed, claiming that they’d been coerced and intimidated by the Palestinian Arabs who run the BDS racket.

This is how they prove themselves to be tolerant and deserving of a Palestinian state – by heckling anyone who disagrees with them.

That won’t happen again, they promise – well, until BDS gets wind of the next Jewish performer, anywhere around the world.

That’s what they do, the BDS people. They troll the world to shut down or shout down Jews everywhere.

This is how they prove themselves to be tolerant and deserving of a Palestinian state – by heckling anyone who disagrees with them.

That is all they do. They invent nothing. They discover nothing. They cure nothing. They produce nothing. They contribute nothing. For all that, go to Israel. Go to the Jews. But on bullying and spreading hatred and discord around the world – on this the BDS Arabs and fellow termites are first-class. On this they are experts. After that, zero.

In Spain they did get their comeuppance and got exposed as they do in this thriller of a book.

Of Matisyahu, they demanded that he sign papers denouncing Israel. To his everlasting credit, he refused. He is not Israeli. He was born Matthew Paul Miller in West Chester, Pa., but as some are beginning to learn, Jews everywhere share Jacob’s Israelite birthright. Doesn’t matter where you were born.

Ask your local anti-Semite if West Chester is any different from Jerusalem when it comes to them laying it on.

Personally, the entire flap came as a surprise. I am embarrassed to admit this. Really – where have I been all these years? Until last Friday, I had never heard of Matisyahu. That’s understandable because we do not do much reggae around my home.

I will try it some day. That’s a promise. I already picture myself on the dance floor astonishing my friends to this additional talent.

He writes and dances, too?

Some good came out of this snafu in Spain. Chalk one up against BDS and its ferocious losers.

This time the world caught them in the act for being TOO anti-Semitic. That’s progress. Could be the start of something.

Or maybe not. But like dancing – one step at a time.

New York-based author and bestselling Novelist Jack Engelhard writes aregular column for Arutz Sheva. Website: www.jackengelhard.com

JEWISH HOLLYWOOD OFFERS RED CARPET FOR O'BAMA'S NUKE DEAL - AUGUST 17, 2015

Because you’re a know-nothing fool, better to keep silent rather than go public and erase all doubt.

The latest – you heard? That’s about the 98 Hollywood Jewish leaders who happily support Obama’s Iran Nuke Deal.

That should be enough, so you would think. People have an opinion, this way or that, and when it’s something so political, so scientific, so controversial, usually they debate it around the kitchen table and leave it there because if they’re wrong they stay wrong, but in silence.

If later it is proven that they were dead wrong, no harm done, because they kept it to themselves.

Not so the 98 Jewish Players. They decided to go ahead to tell the world what they think of the Deal. 

They think it’s terrific. 

So terrific that they published their support in LA’s edition of The Jewish Journal. They signed their names to proclaim themselves as experts to a
Now the entire world knows them as we know “the wise men of Chelm,” a synonym for people who are absolutely clueless.
deal that even scientists and lawyers still can’t figure out…except that it stinks. It reeks of doomsday.

But Jewish Hollywood knows better. They saw Obama’s name on it and stamped it kosher.

So now the entire world knows them as we know “the wise men of Chelm,” a synonym for people who are absolutely clueless.

Let me tell you something. A typical screenplay runs 120 pages. That makes it a typical two-hour movie since each page approximates a minute of film.

But before a movie goes into production, the script undergoes a hundred changes and even that’s not enough. Often a “script doctor” is called in to do more fixing. Sometimes it takes years before anybody is happy enough to give it the green light. But in the end, nobody is happy. It’s not quite right. It can always be better.

Julius and Philip Epstein were rewriting “Casablanca” even as the movie was being shot. Between scenes, Ingrid Bergman kept complaining that she did not know who she was supposed to be in love with, Humphrey Bogart or Paul Henreid. For “Gone With The Wind” F. Scott Fitzgerald was called in to do some tinkering, but was fired because he took liberties with Margaret Mitchell’s sainted novel.

Robert Bolt had to completely redo Michael Wilson’s script for “Lawrence of Arabia” before David Lean was happy enough to start shooting.

We’re still talking about a 120-page screenplay. That’s what they know, these Hollywood 98. That’s their business.

Now let’s talk about an Iran Nuke Deal that runs, we are told, more than 1,000 pages.

Are we to assume that Norman Lear and the rest of them read all that, word for word, and if they did, are we to assume that, in their careful consideration, this work is so perfect that it is ready for production? No rewrite necessary? Are there no plots and sub-plots that, according to the language of the trade, needs more work?

No, after careful study on their yachts and then sharing lunch at Spago, they concluded that they know best.

They know better …better than the nuclear physicists who declare the deal a flop favorable only to the mullahs of Iran.

Or is it that these Jewish Liberals remain so gaga for Obama that they don’t care who lives or dies, so long as Liberalism lives?

That’s got to be it because nothing else makes sense.

Hemingway never liked the movies they made from his novels. He was fond of giving the following advice – “Stick to what you know.”

Otherwise, we might add, you risk making complete fools of yourselves.

New York-based author and bestselling novelist Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. His novel “Indecent Proposal” was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. His latest thriller is “The Bathsheba Deadline.” Website: www.jackengelhard.com

JEWS ARE POWERFUL--UNTIL THEY'RE NOT - AUGUST 13, 2015

There was a moment when I was tempted to say, damn it, let him have his precious Iran Deal. Let’s quit the squabbling. He’s going to get his way regardless. Even with Schumer on our side, Congress will not have enough votes to override his veto. Obama’s got it in the bag.

So what’s to be gained by all this remonstrating? We’re getting nothing out of it except a bellyful of anti-Semitism.

Who needs this? Who needs this for a lost cause?

But that was just a momentary lapse on my part. Call it political fatigue. I know what happens when Jews don’t fight back.

That’s all I needed to get me back to my senses. Fight back we must. For the safety and wellbeing of the United States.

Is anti-Semitism a desirable legacy for an American President?

For Israel, the Iran Deal is not about politics. It’s about life and death.

For Obama it’s a political argument he is determined to win at any price. It’s a matter of pride. It’s a matter of legacy.

This is his last stand. But is anti-Semitism a desirable legacy for an American President? Because that’s where this is going.  

Obama is playing a dangerous game when he unleashes the dogs of anti-Semitism through innuendo.

He’s whipping up the Pat Buchanan/Rev.Wright crowd.

But he is no anti-Semite. I trust Michael Oren on this. The former Israeli ambassador to the United States knows the man and on that point he assures us that for Obama it’s only about “policy” and about a different view of the Middle East, nothing about an extraordinary animosity toward the Jewish State or the Jewish people.

Okay. Good. But for my part, it is clear that through loaded language and coded words, Obama is flirting with anti-Semitism.

Americans named Jones and Smith likewise object to the deal. But it’s the Cohens and the Greenbergs who are taking the hit.

It’s getting uncomfortable, to the point where it makes no difference which side you’re on, you are Jewish, so beware.

American Jewish Leftists are still Jewish above all else and to the end. There are no Liberal cemeteries.

So for their own safety, they might want to tone down their heckling against their brothers who denounce the deal. Whatever comes will come for them, too. This monster, anti-Semitism, cannot be caged. Once it starts there is no telling where it ends. The whirlwind consumes everyone and everything in its path.  

Even the Jewish Episcopalians who run The New York Times know, or should know, that sly talk and loose insinuations about “moneyed hawks” and “lobbyists” and “foreign interests” can sink their own ship. We’ve been there before when we felt all too at ease.

The “powerful Jewish lobby,” to name the most common blood libel making the rounds, is a myth. Read this.

It failed Israel during the Yom Kippur War and it failed Israel during the recent Gaza Conflict. In the first instance it was Nixon who rushed in arms against the lobbying effort of Henry Kissinger. In the second instance it was Obama who stopped arms from flowing in, Jewish lobbyists be damned. 

The central point is that Jews are powerful – until they’re not.

No need to mention specifics. Enough to say that the Jews of Germany were powerful until they weren’t.

We can add that Jews are influential – until they’re not. All it takes is one man to change the climate.

Can it happen in America? Remember, we did not just get off the boat. Jews are part of the American soil. Our influence in science, the arts, entertainment, is vast. We served in the armed forces high above our proportion to the general population. We partnered with Christians to create the Judeo/Christian tradition that that made this country the model for tolerance and hospitality.

But elsewhere throughout the world, Jews have always been prey. I am only a voice in the wilderness.

But I ask Mr. Obama to proceed with caution.

Something larger than his own legacy is at stake. The goodness of America is being tested and watched.

New York-based author and bestselling novelist Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. Website: www.jackengelhard.com