Richard Gere, left, with director Joseph Cedar during a news conference after a screening of the film "Norman: The Moderate Rise And Tragic Fall Of A New York Fixer" at the Jerusalem Cinematheque in March. (© Nir Elias / Reuters/REUTERS)

It’s not every day that Israeli filmmaker Joseph Cedar gets to show a Hollywood actor around his home town.

But last month, Cedar brought Richard Gere to Israel for the Jerusalem premiere of his movie “Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer.” Gere plays the film’s protagonist, Norman. Cedar, 49, was born in New York but raised in Jerusalem.

In a recent interview in his Tel Aviv office, Cedar said Gere was under pressure from pro-Palestinian activists not to visit Israel. “But he does not believe in boycotts, so he decided that if he was coming to Israel he had to do something meaningful,” he said.

And as is expected when an A-list celebrity visits a controversial, conflict-ridden region, Gere made headlines.

First, he called Israeli settlements an “absurd provocation” and “completely illegal.” And then he visited the tense West Bank city of Hebron and compared it to America’s segregated Old South.

But perhaps the biggest headline Gere made during his visit had to do with his part in Cedar’s film, which opened in the United States on Friday.

Gere plays Norman, a down-on-his-luck Jewish American businessman who gets close to a young Israeli politician by buying him a pair of fancy shoes.

Fast forward a few years -- and many more small favors - the young politician, known only as Eshel, is now prime minister of the Jewish state and Norman is dangerously ecstatic about his close ties to such a powerful man.

But what makes the story of Norman so headline-worthy is its uncanny similarity to the current situation faced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

American Jews have had a unique philanthropic connection to Israel since its founding in 1948 and throughout the country’s history, Israeli leaders have enjoyed the benefits of that relationship.

Over the past few months, police have questioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu multiple times about his association with wealthy Jewish businessmen, not just in the United States. The question is whether he accepted gifts exceeding appropriate financial limits, and whether he got anything in return.

Netanyahu has denied the accusations, saying the investigation — and two others being conducted by police — “won’t come to anything, because there isn’t anything.”

The film was completed before the investigations into Netanyahu were made public.

[Netanyahu on hot seat over free cigars, pink champagne and secret recordings]

Cedar said, “That relationship between an Israeli politician and all different types of Normans has always fascinated me, and I have seen these relationships up close.”

Cedar’s parents are American Jews who moved to Israel when he was a child. And he is related to Morris Talansky, an American Jewish businessman who was at the center of a bribery scandal involving former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. Cedar declined to talk about that relationship.

Olmert stepped down in 2009 and is serving a prison term for bribery and obstruction of justice.

Cedar said the story of Norman is one he has witnessed all his life.

“I think this kind of thing has been going on for years. All our top politicians have done and are doing what [Netanyahu] is being accused of doing,” he said.

Also noteworthy: At the center of the Netanyahu story is his friend Arnon Milchan — an American Jewish film producer who Israeli media have reported spent tens of thousands of dollars over the years on cigars and pink champagne for the Netanyahu family.

Milchan is behind such credits as “Fight Club,” “The Revenant” and one of Gere’s most memorable films, “Pretty Woman.”

When asked about that during his visit, Gere said: “He’s a very charming and very pleasant, decent guy. I know very little about the history giving him infamy. And I don’t smoke cigars and I don’t drink pink champagne.”

Read more:

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