US actor Jane Fonda backs away from Israel row at Toronto film festival

Jane Fonda has stood with North Vietnam and against the war in Iraq. But Israel has proven to be a protest too far as the veteran actor and political activist backs away from an increasingly bitter dispute among Hollywood names over a film festival that has been variously branded as an Israeli propaganda stunt and a showcase for the achievements of the Jewish state.

Jerry Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen, Lenny Kravitz and Natalie Portman are among those who have put their names to an open letter denouncing a campaign against this year's Toronto film festival spotlight on Tel Aviv to mark the Israeli city's centenary. One Oscar-winning producer has gone so far as to describe the campaign as intended to destroy Israel.

But backers of the protest against the celebration of Tel Aviv - who include Ken Loach, Julie Christie and Harry Belafonte - say that the organisers have been duped in to joining a propaganda campaign after a senior Israeli diplomat in Canada said he was targeting the film festival as part of a multimillion-dollar push to improve the Jewish state's image abroad.

Fonda was among hundreds of artists and activists who put their names to an open letter to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) objecting to Tel Aviv being chosen as the first of its City to City showcases. A Canadian director pulled his documentary in protest, and two Egyptian films were withdrawn.

TIFF has denied it is being used and said Israel's largest city was selected because, like Toronto, it is a diverse metropolis. But the open letter, known as the Toronto Declaration, says that to celebrate Tel Aviv without talking about occupation or this year's bloody attack on Gaza is "like rhapsodising 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".

"We do not protest the individual Israeli filmmakers included in City to City, nor do we in any way suggest that Israeli films should be unwelcome at TIFF. However, especially in the wake of this year's brutal assault on Gaza, we object to the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign on behalf of what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former US President Jimmy Carter, and UN General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann have all characterised as an apartheid regime," the protest letter says.

Among those endorsing the declaration are the actors Danny Glover, the musician David Byrne and the writer Alice Walker. The activists Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky have also backed the protest.

The declaration notes that last year the Israeli government and three major Canadian media companies launched a multimillion-dollar "Brand Israel" campaign to "take the focus off Israel's treatment of Palestinians and its aggressive wars, and refocus it on achievements in medicine, science and culture".

It also points to an interview by the Israeli consul general in Canada, Amir Gissin, in which he said that Toronto had been chosen as a test city by the Israeli foreign ministry to rebrand the Jewish state's image abroad and boasted that he would use the film festival as part of the campaign.

"I'm confident that everything we plan will happen," Gissin told the Canadian Jewish News.

Klein says that Gissin has indeed got his way and that the TIFF organisers have been duped in to playing along with the Israeli government's desire to portray the country as a tolerant liberal democracy.

The protest is also supported by some prominent Israelis including the film-maker, Udi Aloni, who wrote an open letter to other Israeli directors saying he is concerned about the showing of their films at the festival.

"You are becoming ambassadors, or PR spokesmen, for the state, blurring the wrongs of the occupation, by imbuing Israel with a liberal scent. By participating in these types of events you might, together with numerous Israeli film-makers, find yourself participating in the dirty job of branding Israel as a hip western democracy," he said. "Are you with us or with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs? ... I am afraid that nowadays one cannot belong on both sides!"

Fonda initially threw her weight behind the declaration but has since backed away amid a furious campaign against the protest.

Pro-Israel organisations in Los Angeles and Toronto won support from a number of Hollywood names – including Lisa Kudrow, Adam Arkin, Jason Alexander and Baron Cohen who has family in Israel - for a petition headed: "We don't need another blacklist".

"Anyone who has actually seen recent Israeli cinema, movies that are political and personal, comic and tragic, often critical, knows they are in no way a propaganda arm for any government policy," it says. "Blacklisting them only stifles the exchange of cultural knowledge that artists should be the first to defend and protect."

Rabbi Marvin Hier, who has won two Oscars as a producer of documentaries about the Holocaust and who founded the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, has accused supporters of the Toronto Declaration of seeking to eradicate 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 said.

The declaration's organisers have hit back by saying they did not call for a boycott or blacklisting and that their petition is being distorted in order to discredit it.

That did not stop Fonda from changing her mind and backing away from the declaration on the grounds that it was "unnecessarily inflammatory" because it didn't mention Hamas and other issues.

"I signed the letter without reading it carefully enough, without asking myself if some of the wording wouldn't exacerbate the situation rather than bring about constructive dialogue," Fonda wrote on the Huffington Post's website.

Notable names in the City to City debate

Scores of actors, directors, writers and others in the entertainment industry have signed the petitions for and against the Toronto film festival's showcasing of Tel Aviv, Israel's largest city.

Those against, on the grounds that showcasing Tel Aviv is part of propaganda to improve Israel's image abroad, include:
Udi Aloni, Israeli film-maker
John Berger, author and winner of the Booker prize
David Byrne, musician
Eve Ensler, playwright and author
Danny Glover, actor
Naomi Klein, writer and filmmaker
Ken Loach, director
Alice Walker, author

Those against, on the grounds that the criticism amounts to an illegitimate boycott of Israel, include:
Jason Alexander, actor
Sacha Baron Cohen, entertainer
Lenny Kravitz, musician
Lisa Kudrow, actor
Natalie Portman, actor
Jerry Seinfeld, comedian

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