Sunday, March 14, 2010
AA Palestine Film Festival Violates Palestinian Boycott
Last June, in "Which Side Are You On?" I wrote, "There's an old labor song by Florence Reece called 'Which Side Are You On?' Sometimes self-styled Palestinian solidarity activists bring this tune to mind." Today brings the sad news that the organizers of the recently concluded Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival have violated both the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott against Israel and the 2005 Palestinian call for "broad boycotts ... against Israel" by showing an Israeli film, Ajami.
In an Electronic Intifada interview with Jimmy Johnson entitled "Education and resistance at the Ann Arbor Palestine film fest" one of the festival's organizers, Hena Ashraf, is quoted characterizing the festival as combining her interest in film and Palestine solidarity activism. Ashraf says, "Film, and more broadly, media, can be used as a means to educate, but also unfortunately to miseducate. Mainstream media outlets have often presented gross stereotypes of Palestinians and biased misinformation." In the case of Ajami, it appears that Ashraf and her colleagues have not only violated the boycotts but if Raja Shehadeh, founder of the Palestinian human rights organization, Al-Haq, is to be believed they are also guilty of presenting "gross stereotypes of Palestinians and biased misinformation."
Shehadeh says:
The same article also says:
In an Electronic Intifada interview with Jimmy Johnson entitled "Education and resistance at the Ann Arbor Palestine film fest" one of the festival's organizers, Hena Ashraf, is quoted characterizing the festival as combining her interest in film and Palestine solidarity activism. Ashraf says, "Film, and more broadly, media, can be used as a means to educate, but also unfortunately to miseducate. Mainstream media outlets have often presented gross stereotypes of Palestinians and biased misinformation." In the case of Ajami, it appears that Ashraf and her colleagues have not only violated the boycotts but if Raja Shehadeh, founder of the Palestinian human rights organization, Al-Haq, is to be believed they are also guilty of presenting "gross stereotypes of Palestinians and biased misinformation."
Shehadeh says:
[The world of Ajami is] a city of drive-by shootings, drugs, and racketeering, where men, young and old, are shot or stabbed to death on the slightest provocation and shady sheikhs in Arab dress sort out the blood money in what is supposed to pass as tribal justice. ... the unrelieved blood-letting punctuated only by moments of love and loyalty to family and friends leaves us in no doubt that the Jewish citizens of Israel exist in a jungle infested by bloodthirsty, uncivilized Arabs who live inside and outside its borders exactly as Israeli propagandists claim. If Israel is to make it, the story goes, this tiny bastion of civilization has no choice but to remain militarized and on full alert.To return to the boycott issue, last month Hannah Brown touted Ajami in the Jerusalem Post as "a triumph for Israel in a year in which prominent industry figures called for a boycott of a program of Israeli films at the Toronto Film Festival last fall." She also noted, "It received some of its funding from the Israel Film Fund, which is government-supported." On Oscar night, responding to Ajami co-director Scandar Copti's criticism of Israel, Israeli Consul General Jacob Dayan told a Jewish Journal blogger: "Tomorrow no one will remember what [Copti] said ... They’ll remember that this is an Israeli movie and that it will help make Israel a little stronger by reinforcing the relationship between Israel and Hollywood."
The same article also says:
"The film represents Israel exactly," said Israeli-American choreographer Barak Marshall. "It touches on almost all of the issues we face in Israeli society and it shows how broad the public debate is; that someone who is from Israel can negate his very connection to the state shows how wonderfully strong and alive our political culture is."The issue of why Zionists like Ajami is also addressed here and in the Palestine Chronicle but the matter of why self-styled Palestine solidarity activists like Ashraf and her colleagues promote the film is another matter. Is it ignorance? Arrogance? Elitism? Who knows?
For Dayan, art that reflects a dynamic Israeli society and its status as a pluralistic democracy is an essential strength of statehood.
Labels: BDS, culture, Palestine, University of Michigan
Comments:
<< Home
Hello PeaceMonger! It's your friend from AAPFF, Bana Sakr. Next time, kindly contact one of us to get our comment on such an issue before slamming us and assuming we are elitist, arrogant, ignorant, or who knows what :-) Perhaps if you took a few minutes to talk to any of us about the decision to show Ajami, you would have written a very different article.
What a shame it is that you, a "self styled" pro-Palestinian activist have no moral qualms about slamming your fellow activists on the internet without taking time to get their side of the story.
Our contact info is on our website a2palestinefilmfest.org. Next time do your homework before embarrassing yourself like this.
What a shame it is that you, a "self styled" pro-Palestinian activist have no moral qualms about slamming your fellow activists on the internet without taking time to get their side of the story.
Our contact info is on our website a2palestinefilmfest.org. Next time do your homework before embarrassing yourself like this.
Bana, look again and you will see that nothing was assumed about the motivations behind the decision to show Ajami. A question, no matter how suggestive it may be, is simply not an assumption. It's interesting, though, that you took time to whine about a non-existent assumption but you didn't care to explain why Ajami was included in the film fest.
Bana, could you please share with us the decision making process that led to AAPFF's decision to present this film?
That will shed much light on this conversation.
Thanks
Post a Comment
That will shed much light on this conversation.
Thanks
<< Home
