Late yesterday, Joseph Nassralla of Media for Christ broke his silence about "Innocence of Muslims." He issued a statement via Pamela Geller's blog in which he put all the blame for the film and the riots that (at least in part) resulted from it squarely on the shoulders of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, alias Sam Bacile.
There has been a campaign of disinformation and smears about the film "Innocence of Muslims" and my involvement in it. I have been forced to leave my home, and I have received numerous death threats. It grieves me that my intent was to call attention to the relentless, bloody persecution of the Copts, but that issue is of no interest to the media at all. But the hounding by the media and the ongoing Muslim violence forces me to issue a statement setting the record straight.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula called me last year. He said to me, “I know you are protesting the persecution of Christians, the forced conversions, and the killing of innocent Christians while they are worshipping, as well as the burning of the churches in Egypt and the kidnapping of Christian girls for forced conversion."
He told me that he was making a film about Christian persecution, and that it would examine the culture of the desert and how it is related to what is going on right now. The name of Nakoula’s film, he told me, was Desert Warrior.
So the movie that I was told about turned out to be a completely different movie from “Innocence of Muslims.”
Nakoula needed a place to film. So I let him use my facility – that is all I did, and is the full extent of my involvement with this project. Nakoula used my facility for ten days. Media for Christ employees were given a vacation during that time, because Nakoula was using the facility and so there was no work for them. There was only one Media for Christ employee who remained, to answer phones for the ministry.
I later discovered that Nakoula, using the name Sam Bacile, had gone to LA Films as producer of Desert Warrior, and used the name of my organization, Media for Christ, to obtain the permit he needed. He did so without my knowledge or permission.
Nakoula filmed his movie not only at my ministry location, but in Nakoula’s own home (which reporters located by getting the address from the actors), and in another facility for outside scenes that was included in the permit, Blue Canyon. I gave him no further assistance with the project.
Nakoula altered the film without anyone’s knowledge, changing its entire focus and dubbing in new dialogue. He edited it. The final product, “Innocence of Muslims,” bore no resemblance to the film I thought he was making, or the film the actors thought they were creating. We were shocked.
Shorter version: "If Nakoula lied about this film, he lied to us too." Sorry, but that excuse doesn't pass the smell test. For one thing, how do you explain working with a two-time convicted felon? Either Nassralla didn't bother to check his background, or he checked it and was still willing to work with him anyway. Either way, he was being grossly irresponsible in a way that the head of a nonprofit simply cannot be.
To his credit, Nassralla does seem to offer some condolences to the actors in the film. However, if he'd acted with even one iota of responsibility, he never would have let Nakoula use his set in the first place.
No matter how much he tries to deny it, at the very least Nassralla and Media for Christ bear moral responsibility for this film. And by extension, they also bear moral responsibility for four diplomats being dead and 80 innocent cast and crew members being on an Islamofascist target list. And by essentially admitting that he lent his facility to a guy off the street, Nassralla is tacitly admitting moral responsibility.