No Holocaust!? Mel Gibson''s Father Speaks!

Well...we know where Mel Gibson''s father stands on the subject of Jews! This is a report from "Newsday":

From Newsday
Hutton Gibson''s Passion
Mel Gibson''s dad blasts Jews in radio talk show interview
By Carol Eisenberg
STAFF WRITER

February 20 2004

Even as Mel Gibson has sought to quell charges that his movie "The Passion of the Christ" is anti-Semitic, his 85-year-old father discounted the idea that millions of Jews died in the Holocaust and said Jews were trying to take over the world.

"It''s all - maybe not all fiction - but most of it is," Hutton Gibson said of the Holocaust in a radio interview that will air Monday night.

Coming only days before the opening of his son''s film on Feb. 25, Ash Wednesday, Hutton Gibson''s comments inflamed the debate over whether the film will foment anti-Semitic hatred. Critics of "The Passion," including some Catholic scholars, have said it blames Jews for killing Jesus and caricatures them as bloodthirsty.

Mel Gibson denies that and recently agreed to remove the "blood curse," lines from the Gospel of Matthew often interpreted to blame all Jews for all time for Jesus'' killing.

A spokesman for ICON, the filmmaker''s production company, A. Larry Ross, said that Hutton Gibson had no influence on the making of "The Passion of the Christ" or on the thinking of his son, "who doesn''t share those particular views." Ross said Mel Gibson stuck by what he told ABC''s Diane Sawyer in an interview aired Monday. "That''s my father, OK, I love him," he''d said. "And if they''re going to try and drive a wedge in there, it ain''t going to happen."

Steven Feuerstein, host of the syndicated radio talk show "Speak Your Piece!," said he interviewed Hutton Gibson three times since Monday. Portions of the interviews will be broadcast locally on WSNR/620 Monday and Wednesday at 10 p.m. "He was totally cognizant of everything he was saying," Feuerstein said. "This man has an agenda. That''s the bottom line. "

Hutton Gibson, of Summersville, W.Va., is a self-described leader in the ultratraditionalist Catholic sect that rejects reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), including the church''s renunciation of the notion of Jews as culpable for the death of Jesus. According to transcripts of the interview, he also blamed Jews for everything from the Roman persecution of early Christians to fomenting the Russian Revolution to orchestrating an international banking conspiracy. He urges someone to go out and "hang" Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who is Jewish.

Mel Gibson''s defenders denounced the interview yesterday as part of "the whole hit-and-run, and search-and-destroy mission by Gibson''s enemies" in the words of William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

The president of the company that distributes "Speak Your Piece!" called yesterday for a boycott of all of Gibson''s films.

"His actions speak louder than his words," said Zev Brenner, a rabbi who is president and executive producer of the Manhattan-based Talkline Communications Network, America''s largest syndicator of Jewish programming. "He could come out and say, ''I love my father, but I disagree with his views.''"

Most Jewish leaders, however, were relatively muted in their reaction.

"On the one hand, he''s [Hutton Gibson] a classical anti-Semite who is full of conspiracy theories and hate and perversion," said Abraham Foxman, executive director of the Anti-Defamation League.

But Foxman said it would be unfair to ascribe Hutton Gibson''s views to his son. "There are examples of parents who are bigots and children who are not, and vice versa. So who knows?"

Still, the father''s remarks may help explain why Mel Gibson has "not gotten" Jewish concerns, Foxman said.

"I''ve been saying all along that I don''t believe he''s an anti-Semite," Foxman said of Mel Gibson. "I think he just doesn''t get it. And this gives a partial explanation of why. If he was raised hearing all these things about Jews, it would be difficult for him to comprehend that which hurts us and pains us."

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.



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