Though the Toronto Film Festival is winding down, the controversy generated by the protest against the City to City spotlight on Tel Aviv’s 100th anniversary is not. In fact, the pro-Israel smear industry has gone into high gear against key signers of the Toronto Declaration including Naomi Klein and Jane Fonda. Rabbi Marvin Hier with the help of his supporters in Hollywood has engineered a counter-attack which totally ignores the nature of the original protest and construes it as a cultural boycott and “blacklist.” None of these claims have ANY basis in fact. But why would you expect someone like Hier to care about facts?
That’s what my new Alternet piece is about. I hope you’ll give it a read.
Richard, really interesting item you put in there about Fonda fearing loss of financial support for her clinic. You don’t have to answer but boy am I curious, how did you find that out? That’s so low I can’t even find the right word for it. It’s not like they were giving Jane Fonda the money, it was for a charity she founded.
Oh, never mind, I asked you too soon. Just saw it in the Huff piece. I can’t believe it, or rather I just can’t believe they would sink that low.
“We are speaking out in support of Fonda because the truth must be known about her strong support for Israel, and we need to support G-CAPP not only for her, but also for the young women who need our help.
This is what these low lifes were going to withdraw their funding from because of her signing the petition
http://www.gcapp.org/our-inspiring-video
This is just beyond dreadful to put those young women at risk by withdrawing their support. I wish I could say more but my mouth feels like sawdust and my throat is tight with knowing how these BASTARDS would even consider blackmail like that.
Funny thing is, three years ago, in a case I won’t mention, she hosted a cocktail party which she wanted to keep very low key in support of someone who she felt her support might harm if it were publicly known. No one asked her to handle herself in that manner, her support would have been welcome, but SHE chose to do it that way. It was almost like she thought if she went public she would be a kiss of death. That is in the back of my mind when I am seeing what is occurring in this case.
Nice article at Alternet. I’m worried about Naomi Klein. I hope she has good security!
I just discovered this yesterday:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3370814,00.html
An article about how the Israeli government was threatening to pull support from an Israeli film festival in Paris, because the festival was going to prominently feature Udi Aloni’s film Forgiveness.
Unlike the false allegations made about Aloni et al’s letter of protest, the Israeli government actually *was* blacklisting flims and directors. It looked from the article that Israel was on the verge of succeeding, but I couldn’t find out whether it did.
Funny how I didn’t hear about it until yesterday.
Um, why is there a swastika-like symbol next to my name in the post above?