If you read the Bible, this is what you will find:

1. Jesus was himself a Jew.

2. He preached to the Jewish population in what is now Israel/Palestine/etc...and he also preached to anyone else who would listen, which included Romans, Samaritans, and so on...

3. Rome was running Palestine politically and militarily, and was in charge of legal matters, such as trying, imprisoning, and executing people.

4. The Jewish clergy was in charge of religious matters as pertaining to the Jewish population of the region...this included religious laws, customs, rituals, and so on.

5. The most bitter and deadly enemies of Jesus were the hardliners among that Jewish clergy, the scribes and pharisees. They were the people who hated Jesus and wanted him dead. Why? Because he was changing and greatly liberalizing the Jewish religion, and many common people were following him. Most of those common people were Jews.

6. The people whom Jesus reserved his harshest criticism for were the scribes and pharisees. He accused them (rightly) of hypocrisy, of using their exalted postion in society strictly for their own gain, of not serving God or humanity. He was dead right.

7. The highest council of the pharisees, commanded by Caiphas, decided that Jesus had to die...although he had committed no civil crime. They did not have legal authority to execute him, but the Roman governor did. Therefore, they had to convince the Roman governor that Jesus should be executed.

8. These same pharisees arranged for Jesus to be falsely accused of various crimes, arrested, and brought before the Roman governor (they also had him brought before Herod, a Jewish bigwig of the time, but Herod passed the buck to the Roman governor).

9. The Roman governor, Pilate, interviewed Jesus. He investigated the situation as best he could. His conclusions were that Jesus had committed no crimes against anyone and was an innocent man. He suggested to the Jewish clergy that Jesus should not be executed. They went berserk. They demanded in the strongest terms that Jesus should be executed. Pilate, after some soul-searching, decided that it was politically safer to execute one innocent man than face a possible insurrection in Palestine, which was already a very rebellious and difficult province of Rome. He gave in, reluctantly. He symbolically washed his hands, so as to say, "his blood is not on my hands, but yours" (directing that toward the Jewish clergy).

10. So...the Romans did the actual physical and legal actions necessary to carry out the crucifixion of Christ, because they were the only authority empowered to do so. They did not initiate the accusation against him, were not the moral force behind his condemnation, and had no particular ax to grind in the matter whatsoever.

To say that "the Romans killed Jesus" may be literally true. To say that the Jewish scribes and pharisees killed Jesus is a whole lot closer to the heart of the issue. The Romans were the finger that pulled the trigger...the Jewish scribes and pharisees were the accusing and hating mind that directed that finger to pull the trigger. Where does the greatest responsibility lie?

Furthermore! Most of Jesus most dedicated supporters and followers were Jews and Jesus was a Jew. So if some rich, powerful Jews (scribes and pharisees) decide to falsely accuse a Jewish prophet and conspire to have him killed against the wishes of still other (but not so rich and powerful) Jews...HOW THE HELL does depicting that factually add up to anti-semitism???

If all Mel Gibson has done is to depict factually what is already in the Bible, he is not attacking Jews. If someone chooses to interpret the story in such a way as to find justification in it to condemn ALL Jews then that someone is not playing with a full deck...nor is the person who thinks that such a depiction is anti-semitic either.

As for Mel Gibson's father, yeah, he may well be a holocaust denier. Does that necessarily have anything to do with this movie? Maybe...and maybe not. Why not read the Bible, see the movie, and then decide for yourself?

Jews are exactly like all other people. They do good things and they do bad things. They may be hero or villain. They are not cut from a single piece of cloth. To forget this is to descend into some kind of politically dictated insanity...and you see the results of that kind of purblind thinking in the Middle East on a daily basis...where Jews and Muslims treat each other like subhumans because they cannot look past the dark myth they carry in their minds about "the other".

- LH