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Propaganda Campaign
Staff Editorial
Once again some in our artistic community, loosely defined, are protesting. Old hand and protester-in-chief Jane Fonda, as well as Wallace Shawn, Alice Walker and David Byrne have taken it upon themselves to sign a letter of protest. They are protesting the choice of Tel Aviv as its spotlight city by the Toronto Film Festival. As the spotlight city, Tel Aviv is the subject of a series of movie screenings as part of the program at the film festival.
Angry Palestinian artists, filmmakers and writers are, of course, up in arms (pun intended). At least a dozen of them apparently protested outside the Canadian mission in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Really a small tempest in a small teapot. Until, that is, the above mentioned artist/activists jumped in to voice their discontent, and perhaps to get a little bit of the spotlight for themselves. Their criticism is that having Tel Aviv as the subject of a few films makes the Toronto Film Festival “complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine.” You couldn’t make this stuff up if you wanted to.
One is tempted to discount these shenanigans as just typical Hollywood divorced-from-reality spotlight hogging. But this is the Middle East, hardly a place for childish behavior. The consequences of inciting even a small riot here are the inevitable loss of life-indiscriminately, including children.
One would have thought Ms. Fonda would have learned her lesson about being complicit in propaganda campaigns after her trip to North Vietnam.
Angry Palestinian artists, filmmakers and writers are, of course, up in arms (pun intended). At least a dozen of them apparently protested outside the Canadian mission in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Really a small tempest in a small teapot. Until, that is, the above mentioned artist/activists jumped in to voice their discontent, and perhaps to get a little bit of the spotlight for themselves. Their criticism is that having Tel Aviv as the subject of a few films makes the Toronto Film Festival “complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine.” You couldn’t make this stuff up if you wanted to.
One is tempted to discount these shenanigans as just typical Hollywood divorced-from-reality spotlight hogging. But this is the Middle East, hardly a place for childish behavior. The consequences of inciting even a small riot here are the inevitable loss of life-indiscriminately, including children.
One would have thought Ms. Fonda would have learned her lesson about being complicit in propaganda campaigns after her trip to North Vietnam.
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| The Reasons For Our Discontent |
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