Jane Fonda is one of a number of luminaries who have signed on to a petition calling on the Toronto International Film Festival to attach Palestinian claims to this year’s "twinning" with Tel Aviv.
A number of Atlanta Jewish luminaries have signed a statement defending Fonda from the "vilification" that ensued.
Here’s what they say, posted on the Huffington Post:
Among those misrepresentations and accusations are that she called for a boycott of TIFF — not true; that she called Tel Aviv illegitimate — not true; and, perhaps the most outrageous one, that she supports the destruction of Israel — absolutely not true. The claim that Fonda seeks Israel’s destruction is shameless slander, pure and simple, and lobbing such an accusation makes it nearly impossible to hold an honest conversation about the present and future of Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
The first and third "accusations" are in fact not true — but I’m not sure who exactly is making them; you’d think that if a statement, one posted as an easily hyperlinked blog, and especially one decrying ad hominem attacks, would back its claims with evidence. Maybe such attacks exist, but it’s not up to the reader (in this case, me) to do the research.
The second claim has some merit; I’m among those who have wondered aloud why films in Tel Aviv should necessarily be accompanied by dubious "contexts" about its founding. The statement from the Atlanta Jews says that Fonda was accused of calling Tel Aviv "illegitimate." She, personally, did not, but see if you think the statement she signed came close:
The emphasis on ‘diversity’ in City to City is empty given the absence of Palestinian filmmakers in the program. Furthermore, what this description does not say is that Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages, and that the city of Jaffa, Palestine’s main cultural hub until 1948, was annexed to Tel Aviv after the mass exiling of the Palestinian population. This program ignores the suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants of the Tel Aviv/Jaffa area who currently live in refugee camps in the Occupied Territories or who have been dispersed to other countries, including Canada. Looking at modern, sophisticated Tel Aviv without also considering the city’s past and the realities of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip, would be like rhapsodizing about the beauty and elegant lifestyles in white-only Cape Town or Johannesburg during apartheid without acknowledging the corresponding black townships of Khayelitsha and Soweto.
The critical word here — and Jane Fonda can read, one presumes — is "during" as in, "during apartheid." Whatever the merits of the petitioners claims’ about Tel Aviv’s origins (and they are controversial at least), 1949 put them to an end according to any other standard of national origins.
One might argue that the occupation alone makes any Israel focus necessarily susceptible to the Palestinian narrative. I don’t think so, but that is the argument here; the petitioners are saying that Tel Aviv’s history demands accountability. This, presumable (Jane?) would outlast a resolution of the occupation — and is simply not a standard I’ve seen any film festival make when it focuses on another nation. And surely, Israel’s creation is not the only one that displaced indigenous peoples. New Zealand has a thriving film industry; its creation supplanted an ancient civilization; those issues have yet to be fully resolved. Have Fondas and her cvo-signatories protested the lack of a Maori narrative at festivals celebrating New Zealand? Especially a festival that included films that decried the 19th century New Zealand wars?
Samuel Maoz, the director of Lebanon, (an antiwar film) raises an interesting question, speaking to the Observer after he won Venice’s prestigious Golden Lion: What would Fonda and the signatories have made of his film?
The point of a film like mine is to open a dialogue, to get people talking to each other about important issues. This is something you can’t do if films are boycotted. It makes no sense to boycott art. Maybe I wouldn’t have won if Jane Fonda was on the jury, but she wasn’t.
He calls what’s happening in Toronto a "boycott." Not technically — the petitioners would welcome his film, as long as it was stripped of Israeli referents, or conversely, burdened with murky, questionable history. That adds up to a boycott — not of the film, but of something even more precious: Maoz’ identity.
UPDATE: Jane Fonda also weighed in, citing an op-ed by Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wisenthal Center in the Toronto Sun. She doesn;t provide a link either, but at least I was able to track it down.
Here’s Fonda:
So– I wake up this morning to a barrage of emails giving me a link to a web posting that has been widely picked up. It says that Rabbi Hier at the Simon Wiesenthal Center (he and I were friends—I thought) claims I support the destruction of Israel because I signed (along with many other artists, historians, including eight Israelis, mostly filmmakers) a petition protesting the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to feature a celebratory “spotlight” on Tel Aviv.
Here’s Hier:
What touched a raw nerve with me was their audacity to move the discussion away from the usual flashpoints of the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem to a new plateau, of calling into question the legitimacy of Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial, cultural and financial centre.
As their declaration states: "Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages and that the city of Jaffa … was annexed by Tel Aviv after the mass exiling of the Palestinian population…. Looking at … Tel Aviv without … considering the city’s past… would be like rhapsodizing … about the elegant lifestyles in white-only Capetown or Johannesburg during apartheid…
I’m not sure the petition "questions Israel’s right to Tel Aviv" or even calls "into question the legitimacy of Tel Aviv." These indeed might be overstatements, however slight, of a demand to attach to any discussion of Tel Aviv the imagined sins of its founding.
But Fonda is definitely guilty of a misrepresentation when she says Hier "claims I support the destruction of Israel."
Here’s how Hier continues:
There is no denying that by questioning Israel’s right to Tel Aviv, these artists are bolstering the claim of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who called Israel a rogue state that was allowed to steal Arab lands to make up for their "alleged" mistreatment in Europe.
In essence, the Toronto Declaration validates those claims and is, intentionally or unintentionally, nothing more than a recipe for Israel’s destruction.
"Unintentionally" "bolstering" a "recipe for Israel’s destruction" does not equate with "supporting" Israel’s destruction.
Fonda, who ain’t much of a writer, kind of hoists herself on her own petard:
We understand that by doing this the festival has become, whether knowingly or not, a participant in a cynical PR campaign to improve Israel’s image, make her appear less war-like.
"Make her appear less warlike"? Israel is inherently war-like?
We protest the use of Tel Aviv to rebrand Israel.
How does Israel’s largest city "rebrand" Israel, whatever the intentions of the festival’s donors? Tel Aviv is already between a quarter and a fifth of Israel. And the petition protested Tel Aviv itself, not merely its role in a PR campaign.
Or as one of her commenters, Efi, puts it:
If there was a celebratory spotlight on New York, should it be cancelled because the American army killed a hell of a lot Afghans?
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