This week the Minister of Culture Miri Regev and member of the Jerusalem City Council and Deputy Mayor Dov Kalmanovitz received a letter from us calling upon them to cancel the anti-Israeli NGO Zochrot’s Nakba film festival scheduled to take place next Tuesday at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.
In the letter we wrote, among other things, that “since the Cinematheque is supported by the Jerusalem Municipality and the Ministry of Culture, we are dismayed to see that an institution supported by public funds presents films which are geared only for the sole purpose of erasing and abolishing the right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state. There is no dispute that flooding the State of Israel with millions of Palestinians not only means turning it into an Arab state, but also into a killing field between different ethnic communities as is happening in the entire Middle East.”
“Therefore, it is clear that the vision of the anti-Israel NGO Zochrot is insane and is not a viable reference. We urge you to demand that the Jerusalem Cinematheque immediately cancels the Zochrot festival. In addition, funding for the Cinematheque’s 2016 budget should be under the condition that the annual festival is cancelled and no such programs will be held there in the future.”
In response to the letter, Deputy Mayor Kalmanovitz stated that “the Zochrot Nakba film festival at the Jerusalem Cinematheque highlights the fact that we are in the midst of a battle against organizations that have made it their goal to destroy the Jewish and democratic state of Israel and impose chaos here. Eitan Bronstein – founder of Zochrot – uses Israeli democracy to spew lies about history, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and presents a false narrative that is not related to reality in any way. Are we – in the name of democracy, freedom of expression and the right to create art – going to provide a stage for a destructive entity that is set out to destroy Israel as we know it? Is it acceptable to allow this NGO to distort history on a public stage in Jerusalem – the capital of Israel – and thereby encourage the wave of anti-Semitism that Israel now stands before in the wake of radical leftist organizations in Europe?”
“Jerusalem is in the midst of a wave of terror perpetrated by individuals who are incited by the hope and belief that the State of Israel can be destroyed from the inside by physical terror – sowing fear and horror – and ideological terror – weakening our belief in the Zionist state and its citizens. Legitimating the message of the Zochrot organization and providing a stage to what is a hostile entity that supports ideological terrorism would bring only continued physical terrorism to Jerusalem and throughout the country. It is unacceptable that at this point in time a stage will be given that will open the gates for wild, anti-Zionist and destructive incitement from the radical left. I will work to change the decision to hold the Festival at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, an institution which is supported by the municipal budget, not in the name of silencing, but in the name of democracy and the protection of it and the State of Israel as a moral beacon in the Middle East. We defend not only the country, but its people who are being injured in terrorist attacks. If the leftist organizations succeed Israel will not remain what it is now and will never be able to return to what it is today, and that is what concerns me the most.”
