Why Is Jane Fonda Being Accused Of An "Attack On The Heart and Soul Of Israel"?

You know how those flamboyant Hollywood types like to exaggerate. And when people anywhere talk about the Israel-Palestine conflict, moderate words are usually in short supply. Put the two together, and it's not surprising to find heated language flying on every side. But if, as William Blake said, the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom, we might learn a lot about the Middle East tragedy from excessive words coming out of Hollywood.

Actually, right now, they're coming out of Toronto, the latest place where Hollywood has met the Middle East -- appropriately enough, perhaps, since Toronto has huge active Jewish and Muslim communities as well a very creative film scene.

This year the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is honoring the 100th anniversary of the founding of Tel Aviv by spotlighting 10 Israeli films. That has sparked a protest (not a boycott, contrary to some rumors) by more than 60 artists, including Danny Glover, David Byrne, and Eve Ensler.

But the big catch for the protest organizers was two-time Oscar-winner Jane Fonda (Best Actress: 1971 for Klute, 1978 for Coming Home). When she signed the protesters' "Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation," she put the whole controversy even more firmly in the headlines.

The Declaration declares that Tel Aviv cannot be looked at in isolation from the suffering of the Palestinians; the TIFF program "ignores the suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants"; the festival's claim to encourage diversity is "empty given the absence of Palestinian filmmakers in the program."

John Grayson, the Canadian filmmaker who initiated the protest, further charges that TIFF, "whether intentionally or not, has become complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine." "We're not protesting the Israeli films or the filmmakers," he says. "Our target is TIFF's Spotlight on Tel Aviv itself, and specifically its connections to the 'Brand Israel' campaign [a campaign supported by major Canadian media companies to polish Israel's image] and the Israeli Consulate, which make the spotlight look and feel like a propaganda exercise. We're telling TIFF that eight months since the Gaza massacre, this is no time to be uncritically 'celebrating' Tel Aviv."

Those are generally measured words, though it does seem unfair to call the focus on Tel Aviv a "celebration of occupation"; an "obfuscation of occupation" would have made the point more precisely. And in fact TIFF will show two Palestinian films along with the Israeli films.

But whatever bit of exaggeration the protesters may engage in is dwarfed by the sharp retort they've elicited from another two-time Oscar-winner, Rabbi Marvin Hier. He's not quite as famous as Jane Fonda, to say the least. But he does indeed have as many of those golden statuettes as she has on the mantelpiece (Best Documentary, Features: 1997 for The Long Way Home,1982 for Genocide). And he is an ordained rabbi. Hier produced his award-winning documentaries as part of his better-known work: He's founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

Rabbinical Nonsense

Rabbi Hier blasted the TIFF protest in overheated language, as "an attack on the heart and soul of Israel. … People who support letters like this are people who do not support a two-state solution. By calling into question the legitimacy of Tel Aviv, they are supporting a one-state solution, which means the destruction of the State of Israel. "

He went on to say, "If every city in the Middle East would have the cultural diversity, the freedom of expression, and treat its citizens, Jews and Arabs, the way Tel Aviv does, peace would have come to the Middle East long ago."