Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Sunday, Sept. 21, 2003

Rich leads his polemic with Gibson's comments about Rich published in the New Yorker: "I want to kill him. I want his intestines on a stick. ... I want to kill his dog."

Though Rich laughed off Gibson's “death threat,” writing “that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals may be relieved to learn that I do not have a dog," he launched a nasty attack against Gibson, Gibson’s 85-year old father, the film, and Bill O’Reilly.

Rich chastised Gibson for only showing the film to sympathetic Christians or rightwing Jews.

He again raised the issue that a group of scholars, before seeing the film but after reviewing a purloined copy of the script, had deemed the film to be anti-semitic as it laid the blame for Jesus’ death on the Jews.

Rich says he has consulted some of those who have seen the film, and they all agree with the sentiment expressed by one: ‘‘It’s not a close call —the film clearly presents the Jews as the primary instigators of the crucifixion.’’

Rich continued his line of attack in his latest column, claiming that Gibson "has based his movie on at least one revisionist source, a 19th-century stigmatic nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, notable for her grotesque caricatures of Jews. To the extent that there can be any agreement about the facts of a story on which even the four Gospels don’t agree, his movie is destined to be inaccurate."

Rich cites in the New Yorker profile, “Gibson says that ‘modern secular Judaism wants to blame the Holocaust on the Catholic Church,’ a charge that Abraham Foxman, of the Anti-Defamation League, labels ‘classic anti-Semitism.’’’

The liberal Times writer also says that Gibson's motives are political, and he is using his film to divide conservative Christians from liberal ones, and Jews against Christians, as part of the “culture war” conservatives say they are fighting.

"Intentionally or not, the contentious rollout of ‘The Passion’ has resembled a political campaign, from its start on ‘The O’Reilly Factor,’” Rich says.

Rich claims that evidence also proves Gibson was seeking a “brawl.”

He writes, “In January, the star had gone on 'The O’Reilly Factor' to counter Jewish criticism of his cinematic account of Jesus’s final hours — a provocative opening volley given that no critic of any faith had yet said anything about his movie (and wouldn’t for another three months).”

Contrary to Rich’s claims, press problems with Gibson’s film and his family’s religious beliefs did spark his January interview with O’Reilly.

As was reported on January 23rd on the Telegraph.co.uk, Gibson was already angry over a New York Times’ reporter and his pestering of Gibson’s father, Hutton, and other relatives.

Since Gibson’s appearance on the top-rated "O’Reilly Factor" program, O’Reilly has championed Gibson and his movie.

“You have an elite media which [have] an agenda and the agenda is destroy Mel Gibson because we don't like the concept of what he's doing, basing a movie on the Gospels - we don't like that - so we are going to destroy him personally," O'Reilly told the New Yorker.

Rich contrasted his own criticism of Gibson’s “Passion” to O’Reilly's support of the film, and made the serious charge that Gibson has effectively paid off the Fox newsman.

Rich writes of his interest in the movie that “unlike the conservative author Bill O’Reilly, who sold the film rights to one of his books to Gibson’s production company, I am not being paid by him to do so.”

Editor's note:
Bill O'Reilly responds to his critics -- click here.

James Hirsen’s "Tales from the Left Coast" - Find out the real story behind Mel Gibson`s "The Passion," and more!