Dear CAIA allies and supporters,
We urge you to write to the Toronto International Film Festival protesting its decision to Spotlight Tel Aviv for its inaugural City-to-City program. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) issued a statement urging all filmmakers and audiences to boycott this Spotlight on Tel Aviv. For the full PACBI statement please see:
http://www.pacbi.org/
As the PACBI statement points out:
“The ‘diversity’ celebrated by the Spotlight is in fact based on the erasure of the physical presence of the Palestinians, their culture, heritage and memory. The adjacent Palestinian city of Jaffa and numerous villages were emptied of their indigenous inhabitants to make way for Tel Aviv. Many refugees from Jaffa and other destroyed villages that Tel Aviv replaced reside in
Toronto today, denied the right to return to their homes.
Such a celebration at this time, therefore, can only be seen by Palestinians and supporters of a just peace around the world as an act of complicity in whitewashing Israel’s war crimes and other grave violations of international law. It is a cynical and immoral politicization of the TIFF.”
Please send letters of protest to TIFF co-director and City-to-City programmer at CBailey@tiff.net and to TIFF’s press office at proffice@tiff.net
A sample letter is provided below, though it is always better to draft your own original letter.
For more information please email us at: endapartheid@riseup.net
In Solidarity,
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid
www.caiaweb.org
SAMPLE LETTER
Re: City-to-City Spotlight on Tel Aviv
I am writing to you out of my concern about the Toronto International Film Festival’s City-to-City spotlight on Tel Aviv.
According to your website, the spotlight “will showcase the complex currents running through today’s Tel Aviv. Celebrating its 100th birthday in 2009, Tel Aviv is a young, dynamic city that, like Toronto, celebrates its diversity”. Nowhere in this description of Tel Aviv is there mention of the fact that Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages. In 1948, the inhabitants of these villages were forcibly removed in order to make room for the city of Tel Aviv. Today, many of the former inhabitants of these villages and Tel Aviv’s neighbouring city of Jaffa reside in Toronto because they are refugees who have been denied the right to return to their homes.
In addition to ignoring Palestinian history, the spotlight is also part of an Israeli propaganda campaign known as ‘Brand Israel’. In 2008, Israel chose Toronto as a test city for ‘Brand Israel’. This campaign is an effort by the Israeli government to improve its image globally. The campaign’s goal is to draw attention toward Israel’s medical, scientific and cultural accomplishments in order to shift attention away from its numerous crimes against the Palestinian people. The ‘Brand Israel’ campaign is a blatant example of how Israeli cultural institutions play a vital role in whitewashing Israeli war crimes. Israeli consul general Amir Gissin said that the culmination of the campaign would be a major Israeli presence at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. Whether or not TIFF sees it this way, the City-to-City program is being viewed by the Israeli state as an important aspect of its international propaganda campaign.
This past winter the world watched in horror as Israel launched a full-scale military assault on the people of Gaza. Over 1400 Palestinians were killed in this attack, including over 400 children. TIFF showcasing Tel Aviv and Israel is equivalent to the festival choosing to showcase Cape Town at the height of South African Apartheid. It is simply unacceptable and inexcusable.
In support of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) statement calling for a boycott of the Spotlight, I will not be attending any of these films and will be encouraging others to do the same. I strongly urge TIFF to reconsider its celebration of Tel Aviv and Israel – a state that has been described as an Apartheid regime by prominent figures such as South African Bishop Desmond Tutu and former US President Jimmy Carter.
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Artist John Greyson takes up BDS Campaign, Pulls out of TIFF in protest:
http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/250.php#continue
