Defamation (film)

Defamation (Hebrew: השמצה‎; translit. Hashmatsa) is a 2009 documentary film by award-winning filmmaker Yoav Shamir. It examines antisemitism and, in particular, the way perceptions of antisemitism affect Israeli and U.S. politics. Defamation won Best Documentary Feature Film at the 2009 Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

Content

The film examines whether anti-Semitic has become an all purpose label for anyone who criticizes Israel and the possibility that some Jews' preoccupation with the past—i.e., the Holocaust—is preventing progress today. Shamir decided to make Defamation after a critic of an earlier film accused him of antisemitism.

Filmmaker Yoav Shamir states in the beginning of the film that as an Israeli he has never experienced antisemitism himself and wants to learn more about it since references to antisemitism in countries all over the world are common in the Israeli media.

The film includes interviews with Abraham Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, John J. Mearsheimer, co-author of New York Times best seller The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Norman Finkelstein, a critic of Israeli government policy, as well as many others. Defamation also follows a group of Israeli high school students on a class trip to Poland where they tour Auschwitz, as well as a number of other notable Holocaust locations (March of the Living).