A Ban for a Ban!

Here is one more reason to love France added to Paris, the Louvre, the Champs-Elysees, the French coffee, the French bread and Zinedine Zidane! (Source: Haaretz Newspaper, August 16, 2006 )

A Ban for a Ban By Goel Pinto

The documentary film festival that opens this weekend in Lussas, France, was to have devoted a special place to Israeli cinema. However, due to the war in Lebanon, the festival's directors decided to cancel the screening of some of the Israeli films that had been invited for screening, among them "Badal," by Israeli director Ibtisam Mara'ana. In a letter to Mara'ana, the festival directors explained that it had been decided to create an alternative program consisting of Lebanese and Palestinian films that would present the face of opposition to the war.

This ugly decision is another expression of the distortion that is typical of Europe's attitude toward Israeli culture in general and local films in particular. Mara'ana is an excellent example of the inseparable bond between Israelis and Palestinians in the local film industry, especially in the realm of documentaries. She is a Palestinian-Israeli director who creates excellent documentaries about the lives of Arab citizens. She also works in total cooperation with Israelis, for example, Osnat Trabelsi, who produced "Badal."

The French festival joins other film festivals in Edinburgh, Scotland, Locarno, Italy and the Dublin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, all of which have canceled the participation of Israeli filmmakers in their programs over the past two weeks because of the sponsorship of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. All the cancelations were due to pressure by Palestinian groups, which are taking advantage of the war in Lebanon to promote the call for a boycott of Israeli culture.

Last week a petition was published on the internet, signed by dozens of Palestinian artists, calling for a cultural ban on Israeli institutions and artists. Among those who signed were Cannes prize winner Elia Suleiman ("Divine Intervention"), Golden Globe winner Hany Abu-Assad ("Paradise Now"), Sundance Festival laureate Juliano Mer Khamis ("Arna's Children"), and others.

"We call upon the international community," they wrote, "to join us in boycotting Israeli film festivals, Israeli public venues and Israeli institutions supported by the government, and to end all cooperation with these cultural and artistic institutions that to date have refused to take a stand against the occupation."

The malevolence and stupidity of these calls is obvious when one asks against whom this boycott is directed: against Alon Garboz, the director of the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, the man who with his own body blocked demonstrators who protested the screening of Mohammed Bakri's "Jenin, Jenin," despite its distortions of fact? Against Pnina Bleyer, director of the Haifa International Film Festival, who has for years presented films, even insignificant ones, because they were made in Algeria, Morocco or Palestine? Or perhaps it is against filmmakers in Israel, many of whom have proved over the last decade, even during the most difficult days of the intifada, that cultural dialogue is possible even in at a time of violent confrontation?

The point is that the boycott does only not affect Israeli film people, many of whom have for years been among the opponents of the occupation of the territories, but also the Palestinians themselves, as the example of Ibtisam Mara'ana shows. Does the call for a ban mean that "Paradise Now" should not be screened just because one of its producers, Amir Harel, is Israeli? And what about Palestinian filmmaker George Khleifi? Is his signature on the petition also aimed at the film "Route 181," directed by his brother Michel Khleifi, together with Eyal Sivan? Or perhaps his call for a boycott also extends to the book "Landscape in Mist: Space and Memory in Palestinian Cinema," which his brother wrote together with Nurit Gertz, because it was put out by the Am Oved publishing house?

The stupidity and malevolence of the boycott also come to the fore in the double standard which Europeans are experts at presenting. While almost automatically rejecting Israeli artists, Europe welcomes with open arms films from countries where human rights are consistently trampled, like Turkey, Iran and China. In these cases the festivals tend to distinguish between the creator, the creation and the regime in which it was produced. But they have no impediments when it comes to Israel.

Perhaps Palestinian artists should be treated in the same way? Perhaps the time has come for Israeli cultural institutions and filmmakers to call for a boycott of Palestinian artists and their films? The time may have come to use the same sort of language for them as has been used in a petition: "As long as you do not come out expressly against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, you and your films are not wanted on the cinematheques, festivals, or movie screens." Until they do so, we will come out in protest against the Israeli occupation of the territories and the expansion of fighting in Lebanon - on our own.

This is so preposterous yet so pathetic for an advocate of the devil. Pinto is using a cheap trick by trying to gain the support of few Israeli artists who are against occupation by generalising their exceptional case. Few points need to be mentioned here; the first is that Pinto should not be worried about those artisits as the film festival organisers in the world are clever enough to differentiate between a film made by an Israeli in support of the Palestinian just cause (or at least part of it) and another which delivers no message but the stereotype the Israeli Zionistpropaganda have been trying to convince the whole world with.

Before I walk away from this point I need not to remind Goel Pinto that Ibtisam Mara'ana wouldn't have her film supported by the Israelis if its content wasn't criticising the Palestinian culture. Likewise, Juliano Mer Khamis, a Jew himself, would have been allowed to bury his mother "Arna -the Hero" in "Israel" if his films were criticising the Palestinians instead of supporting their cause.

Furthermore, even if an jewish-Israeli or an Arab-Israeli artists who is supportive of the Palestinians has been banned from participating in any multi-national event, I trust that they will blame not the organisers of that event but rather the Israeli government which bequeathed its citizens the contempt of the whole world apart from some still brainwashed by the pro-Zionist media.

"Perhaps the time has come for Israeli cultural institutions and filmmakers to call for a boycott of Palestinian artists and their films." I can understand this statement from two different perspectives each is worse than the other. If this is a call for boycotting the Palestinians who hold the Israeli citizenship then this is an unmistakable self-evident proof on the racism that the Zionist ideology and "Israel" as a state is based on despite the makeup the Zionist media is working hard to piant "Israel" with to look like an indiscriminating democratic state. A second reading of the statement gives me the sense that Pinto is actaully talking about a like-to-like confrontation between the cultural institutions and filmmakers on both sides of the Green Line. It seems that Goel is forgetting that the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) haven't excluded the Palestinian cultural and educational infrastructure from their shells.

No Israeli artist should have the right to work in peace and roam the world freely to share their art with others until a Palestinian artist has the same right to work and travel freely not under occupation. And until this is acheived the cultural boycott of Israel should continue and spread to all the free peace-lving nations on this Globe.