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Tel Aviv Tiff at Toronto Film Festival

[Toronto Star] Editorial - "Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages" observes an ad hoc committee of artists and filmmakers heaping scorn on the Toronto International Film Festival for daring to program a Tel Aviv segment, as Israel's biggest city marks its 100th anniversary. While the UN awarded Tel Aviv to Israel more than six decades ago, the subtext is that Tel Aviv is akin to an illegal Jewish settlement. Anti-Israel diatribes are becoming a bore: Complaints against the Royal Ontario Museum for showing Israel's biblical Dead Sea Scrolls; "Israel Apartheid Week" for high-minded student activists; public employee union locals calling for a boycott of Israeli academics; and the latest Pride parade featuring a float that attacked gay-friendly Israel for apartheid policies (ignoring other Middle Eastern regimes that persecute gays). What a strange plot twist: Canadian filmmakers who pay lip service to free expression trying to bring the curtains down on Israeli filmmakers whose art is tainted by their Tel Aviv origins. But why not castigate city hall for twinning Toronto with Chongqing, given China's human rights abuses? Or demand that Toronto sever its "friendship" links with Volgograd because of Russia's political sins? Tel Aviv, it seems, makes for a more tempting target.
2009-09-09 08:00:00
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