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Based on the novel by Lew Wallace, the period drama revolves around Judah Ben-Hur (Heston), a Palestinian nobleman who is enslaved by the Romans, engages in one of the most thrilling chariot races ever captured on ...
The Los Angeles Times has converted Judah Ben-Hur, the fictional enslaved Jewish nobleman who serves as a protagonist in Charles Heston's 1951 Hollywood blockbuster, into a "Palestinian nobleman." Today's paper reports:
Based on the novel by Lew Wallace, the period drama revolves around Judah Ben-Hur (Heston), a Palestinian nobleman who is enslaved by the Romans, engages in one of the most thrilling chariot races ever captured on screen, and even encounters Jesus Christ.
Of course, there was no such place as "Palestine" in the time of Jesus, since the Romans didn't rename Judea as "Palestina" until a hundred years after the death of Jesus (a fact that even the New York Times had to correct).
In earlier coverage, the Los Angeles Times had correctly described Ben-Hur's Jewish/Judean identity. For instance, a March 15, 2001 article referred to "the rich, honorable Jewish man Judah Ben-Hur"; a June 17, 1994 article correctly described him as "the Judean"; and a Sept. 14, 1990 article referred to him as "prince of Judea."
Perhaps the paper's 2011 remake of Ben-Hur, the Judean, into Ben-Hur, the "Palestinian," is testament to the success of ongoing efforts to misleading the masses into believing that a sovereign Palestinian entity did in fact exist before 1948, either in antiquity or in more recent history.
?Entertainment? might be the best written, most serious section in the L.A. Times, but even the entertainment writers are morons when they get political.
The use of "palestinian" and "palestine" is definitely anachronistic for the lifetime of Jesus. These names do not appear in the New Testament at all nor did Rome officially change the name Judea to Syria Palaestina until about 135 CE when the Romans under Emperor Hadrian had finally crushed the Jewish revolt under Bar Kokhba. See link:
The name Palestinian to denote Arabs is of recent vintage. Till 1948 most Arabs living in Mandate Palestine rejected that label and called themselves either South Syrians or just Arabs.
Maybe we should refer to the author of the article as a "Mexican". California was once part of Mexico, wasn't it? (Of course, I am being sarcastic, but I just wonder how the author of the article would have reacted to my comment? What's good for the goose.......)
the official WB website describes Ben Hur as a "Jewish nobleman in Palestine" so, even if historically Palestine didn't exist at that time - (and probably the makers of this fictional film didn't look this up because the WB description does reference Palestine) why did the author of this article omit the "Jewish" and convert to "Palestinian?" Very odd and at the least poor/weak/manipulative reporting, unless, of course, the writers and editors are writing for a fiction magazine instead of a newspaper?
Actually, until Arafat created the PLO in 1964, NO Arabs referred to themselves as "Palestinians." "Palestinians" were not even acknowledged as a separate political group until the Rabat Conference in 1974! Prior to then, all references to conflict in the Middle East were always called "Arab-Israeli Conflict" and there is no reference to "Palestinians" after 1948 at all.