FILM ARTISTS JOIN ISRAEL BOYCOTT - THE SAN FRANCISCO SENTINEL ASKS YOU TO SHUN THESE ARTISTS - VIDEO
8 September 2009BY SIMON WIESENTHAL
The Simon Wiesenthal Center
A new front against the very heart and soul of Israel has opened up in Toronto and I urgently ask you to give this your prompt attention.
Sixty-three actors, directors, and writers including some well-known celebrities from around the world have launched a protest against the organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) which takes place September 10-19, 2009, because one of the evenings will showcase Tel Aviv as a “young dynamic city that, like Toronto, celebrates its diversity.”
WOULD YOU LIVE IF YOU SHOWED GAY FILMS IN PALESTINE?
John Grayson
TEL AVIV GAY PRIDE 2009
SAN FRANCISCO GAY PRIDE 2009
Rabbis Ryan Bauer, center; and Sydney Mintz, far right, of San Francisco Congregation Emanu-El march with the Jewish LGBT Alliance. Bill Wilson Copyright © 2009
GAY TEENAGERS EXECUTED BY MUSLIM THEOCRACY
THE HOPE
The protesters say that by hosting this showcase, the Festival ignores the “fact” that, “Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages, and that the city of Jaffa, Palestine’s main cultural hub until 1948, was annexed to Tel Aviv after the mass exiling of the Palestinian population,” … and that the festival is ignoring, “the city’s past and the realities of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip” adding, “we object to the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign on behalf of what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann have all characterized as an apartheid regime.”
As soon as we became aware of this, the Wiesenthal Center contacted the Festival Organizers to thank them for their wonderful initiative and then added this statement by Rabbi Marvin Hier, SWC Dean and Founder:
As a filmmaker and member of the Academy, I can tell you that this is nothing less than a call for the complete destruction of the Jewish State. There can be no other interpretation when the legitimacy of Tel Aviv is called into question. If every city in the Middle East would have the cultural diversity, the freedom of expression, and treat its citizens, Jews and Arabs, the way Tel Aviv does, peace would have come to the Middle East long ago.
Israel is accused of being an apartheid state because it did what every other country in the world would do – defend its citizens against an eight month rocket barrage launched by Hamas terrorists. Let’s be honest, the signatories to this protest may have been filmmakers, authors, directors and actors, but it is clear that the script they are reading from might as well have been written by Hamas.
The Toronto protest is just the latest front in the war to demonize and undermine the very legitimacy of the Jewish state by religious organizations like World Council of Churches, diplomatic maneuvers at the United Nations, regimes like Iran, and academics on both sides of the Atlantic. We need your help as we stand on the front lines of this multi-dimensional struggle.
THE SAN FRANCISCO SENTINEL ASKS YOU TO SHUN THESE FILM ARTSTS
Ahmad Abdalla, Filmmaker, Egypt
Hany Abu-Assad, Filmmaker, Palestine
Mark Achbar, Filmmaker, Canada
Zackie Achmat, AIDS activist, South Africa
Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, Filmmaker, Jerusalem
Anthony Arnove, Publisher and Producer, USA
Ruba Atiyeh, Documentary Director, Lebanon
Joslyn Barnes, Writer and Producer, USA
John Berger, Author, France
Dionne Brand, Poet/Writer, Canada
Judith Butler, Professor, USA
David Byrne, Musician, USA
Noam Chomsky, Professor, USA
Guy Davidi. Director, Israel
Na-iem Dollie, Journalist/Writer, South Africa
Igor Drljaca, Filmmaker, Canada
Eve Ensler, Playwright, Author, USA
Eyal Eithcowich, Director, Israel
Sophie Fiennes, Filmmaker, UK
Peter Fitting, Professor, Canada
Jane Fonda, Actor and Author, USA
Danny Glover, Filmmaker and Actor, San Francisco, USA
Noam Gonick, Director, Canada
Malcolm Guy, Filmmaker, Canada
Mike Hoolboom, Filmmaker, Canada
Annemarie Jacir, Filmmaker, Palestine
Fredric Jameson, Literary Critic, USA
Juliano Mer Khamis, Filmmaker, Jenin/Haifa
Bonnie Sherr Klein, Filmmaker, Canada
Paul Laverty, Producer, UK
Min Sook Lee, Filmmaker, Canada
Paul Lee, Filmmaker, Canada
Yael Lerer, publisher, Tel Aviv
Jack Lewis, Filmmaker, South Africa
Ken Loach, Filmmaker, UK
Arab Lotfi, Filmmaker, Egypt/Lebanon
Kyo Maclear, Author, Toronto
Mahmood Mamdani, Professor, USA
Fatima Mawas, Filmmaker, Australia
Tessa McWatt, Author, Canada and UK
Cornelius Moore, Film Distributor, USA
Yousry Nasrallah, Director, Egypt
Rebecca O’Brien, Producer, UK
Pratibha Parmar, Producer/Director, UK
Jeremy Pikser, Screenwriter, USA
John Pilger, Filmmaker, UK
Shai Carmeli Pollak, Filmmaker, Israel
Ian Iqbal Rashid, Filmmaker, Canada
Judy Rebick, Professor, Canada
David Reeb, Artist, Tel Aviv
B. Ruby Rich, Critic and Professor, USA
Wallace Shawn, Playwright, Actor, USA
Eyal Sivan, Filmmaker and Scholar, Paris/London/Sderot
Elia Suleiman, Fimmlaker, Nazareth/Paris/New York
Eran Torbiner, Filmmaker, Israel
Alice Walker, Writer, USA
Thomas Waugh, Professor, Canada
Howard Zinn, Writer, USA
Slavoj Zizek, Professor, Slovenia
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BILL WILSON
Sentinel Photojournalist
Bill Wilson is a veteran freelance photographer whose work is published by San Francisco and Bay Area media. Bill embraced photography at the age of eight. In recent years, his photos capture historic record of the San Francisco LGBT community in the Bay Area Reporter (BAR). Bill has contributed to the Sentinel for the past five years. Email Bill Wilson at wfwilson@sbcglobal.net.
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