An interesting take on the TIFF boycott.....

This article is from a left perspective.....but deserves to be read....

The Toronto Declaration was ostensibly a protest against a festival decision to honor Tel Aviv and its centenary celebrations. But the neo-Socialist Realism text of the open letter went far beyond that. It denounced TIFF for failing to publicly note, for example, that "Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages." An uproar ensued, not least because many observers, including some leftists, saw an implication that Tel Aviv, and, by extension, Israel, was itself occupied territory, bereft of legitimacy.

Jane Fonda, a headliner of the celebrities who signed the declaration Toronto group, came to recant her support, candidly writing in the Huffington Post that that she had "signed the letter without reading it carefully enough" and pointing in particular to the "abandoned villages" passage.

She added that "it can become counterproductive to inflame rather than explain and this means to hear the narratives of both sides, to articulate the suffering on both sides, not just the Palestinians. By neglecting to do this the letter allowed good people to close their ears and their hearts."

The Toronto group was unmoved by Fonda's words. They had achieved their goal, that of turning the spotlight away from Israel and, if only briefly, toward the real martyrs for Palestine - themselves. The web flowed with praise - and even petitions - hailing the courage of the "true heroes" of the Toronto Declaration.

The progression was shocking to watch. The vanity of the movement is matched only by its cluelessness. On the Declaration's blog site, one of the links following the text of the open letter and its framer's protestations that they were not calling for a boycott, was a statement by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel: "We encourage filmmakers and audiences to boycott the Spotlight as it extends a gesture of 'goodwill' to a colonial and apartheid regime which is violating Palestinian human rights with utter impunity."

One of the founding members of PCABI is Omar Barghouti, who, while arguing for a crippling academic boycott against Israel, is currently studying for his master's degree at Tel Aviv University. Asked by the Forward about his affiliation with an institution he wants boycotted, "Barghouti said he would not discuss his personal life."

Citing Barhjouti's refusal to walk the walk, the left-leaning weekly did not mince words in denouncing the BDS movement in an editorial this week. The movement's adherents, it said, "seem uninterested in performing any personal sacrifice, or even measuring their 'success' by hard numbers. They are most intent on sullying Israel's name and bullying anyone who might suggest another path toward peace in the troubled region."