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Exodus is a great movie and one of the rare few that's available on YouTube. I watch it every so often myself and find it very inspiring. I've never read the book but understand that there's much more to it, tracing the lives of the various characters (and that it's much more anti-British and anti-Arab than the film).

Ironically, the screenplay for Exodus was written by the unrepentant Communist and member of the "Hollywood Ten," Dalton Trumbo (it was his second film after his "rehabilitation;" Spartacus was the first). It was picketed by the notorious American Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell (yimach shemo vezikhro!), which is referred to in Bob Dylan's Talkin' John Birch Society Paranoid Blues. In other words, when the film came out it was considered a liberal, if not leftist, film.

Even though the Communist world had already long since ended its very brief flirtation with Zionism (so much so that notorious neo-Nazi intellectual Francis Parker Yockey [yimach shemo vezikhro!] advocated a neo-Nazi alliance with the Communist world), I cannot help but suspect that the continued support of Israel by the American Left was conducted on orders from Moscow. The American Communists were never anything but robots carrying out orders from Moscow, after all. But why would Moscow expend all its international resources attacking Zionism and Israel while ordering the US party to continue being pro-Israel? About the only thing I can come up with was that by doing this they would hoodwink the Jewish Left into thinking it was still their friend while their opposition everywhere else would eventually destroy Israel (G-d forbid!). At any rate, the American Left's support for Israel lasted a very long time (Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda entertained Israeli troops in Lebanon in 1982).

Oddly, I myself was totally unaware of any Leftist support (or even phony support) for Israel and Zionism at any time. I was a typical Bible Belt Fundamentalist (and had no idea that there was such a thing as a conservative who opposed Israel) and all the Communist propaganda broadcasts I listened to on my short wave radio were 100% anti-Israel, making no distinction between it and South Africa or Rhodesia. While my eyes have long since been opened, I don't think I'll ever make peace with the situation because it never made any sense!

At any rate, I can't help but wonder what today's liberals feel when they watch the movie--especially the Nazi leading the Arab troops toward the end.