![Harvey Weinstein [Image courtesy of David Shankbone/Wikimedia Commons]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/10/11/660x290/b_502x220x82/harvey-weinstein-image-courtesy-of-david-shankbone-wikimedia-commons_1625621.jpg "Harvey Weinstein [Image courtesy of David Shankbone/Wikimedia Commons]")
The rapid fall of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein after decades of sexual misconduct has been breathtaking. Hollywood and the Democratic political establishment, each where Weinstein had an interest in, have been shaken to their foundations. Naturally, questions have arisen about why the New York Times choose to expose Weinstein at this time and not at any point during his long, sordid career of abusing women and getting away with it. It turns out that the Times of Israel has a theory involving a movie the fallen super producer proposed to make.
The story has since been spread by Rush Limbaugh and will, no doubt, show up on cable news in due course.
The Times wanted to spike a movie Weinstein wanted to make
It seems that Weinstein expressed the desire to adapt “Mila 18” a novel about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Leon Uris into a feature motion picture. Uris, as may be remembered, was a writer of historical fiction, with several novels relating the Jewish experience in the 20th Century. His most famous novel about the formation of the State of Israel, “Exodus,” was made into a smash hit film starring Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, and Sal Mineo in 1960. It is not the sort of movie that distinctly anti-Zionist Hollywood would make today.
The theory being posited is that the New York Times wanted to spike “Mila 18” because the story of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising is too close to a justification for Israel. Polish Jews fought valiantly against the Nazis, only to be eventually overwhelmed. The message from Weinstein, an unabashed supporter of Israel, would have been that only if Jews have their own state with a military can they survive the depredations of groups such as the Nazis.
Why the theory is implausible
The idea of taking out the king of Hollywood to stop a movie from being made seems a little far fetched. “Mila 18” is set during World War II with the Nazis as the bad guys, not Arabs. Nazis are the most useable villains for the big or small screens because they were so over the top evil and are nearly universally hated.
The Times would be expected to care less about a movie version of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. To be sure a remake of “Exodus” or, worse, “That Haj.” Uris’ jaundice examination of Palestinian culture, might have been a different matter.
The aftershock of the Weinstein affair, which may include a federal investigation of the toxic sexual atmosphere of the entertainment industry as well as a reassessment of the ties between Hollywood and the Democratic Party, also argues against the conspiracy theory. The New York Times could hardly be expected to harm two institutions that it likes just to take out a movie producer.
