Editorial (July 17, 2009)
Left out in the cold
THE threat by iconic British filmmaker Ken Loach to pull his film, Looking For Eric, from the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) unless the festival organisers reconsider Israel’s sponsorship of the event is lamentable.
Festival director Richard Moore has rightly ruled out pulling the plug on Israel as a sponsor, pointing out that the State of Israel’s sponsorship, like that of several associations, many of them with direct links to their governments, has been going on for a number of years free of conditions.
Moore correctly stated that MIFF would not participate in a boycott of Israel, any more than it would boycott films from China, or other nations involved in longstanding national disputes.
In fact, as Moore acknowledged, MIFF last year featured a stream of films dealing with the social impact of the conflict on Israelis and on Palestinians.
In his letter to MIFF, Loach displays his ideological rigidity in denying Israel a place at any artistic table where he may sit. It demonstrates a lack of insight into what Israel is about -— a freewheeling, complex society in which all aspects of the long-running conflict are debated fully and openly.
But instead of seeing Israel as a role model of democracy in a neighbourhood of closed societies, Loach chooses to reduce Israel to a token of his political ideology.
If Loach were a minor player, his unoriginal attack on Israel may not matter, but coming from a filmmaker who gave us such landmarks as Poor Cow, Kes, Bread and Roses, and The Wind that Shakes the Barley, and TV classics such as Z Cars and Cathy Come Home, his odious political rantings threaten to tarnish his film legacy.
The image of Israel as a military fortress is exactly what the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange (AICE) has so effectively disproved with its cross-cultural programs over the past few years.
Just recently, AICE sponsored the cultural event G’day Shalom Salaam in Israel, while simultaneously sponsoring a delegation of prominent Australians, including Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Coalition frontbencher Peter Costello, shadow education minister Christopher Pyne and Jewish MP Mark Dreyfus, to Israel. There they saw Israel’s vibrant, argumentative and pluralistic society firsthand.
What a shame Ken Loach has kept his eye mask on.
A humanitarian issue
RECENT news coming from Israel tells of a refugee crisis emerging in Eilat and the Negev, largely caused by strife in Sudan and Eritrea. The Israeli government is beginning to address it. The United Nations is devoting more resources to it.
Although it may take some time to sort out, there is little doubt that at the end of the day, the needs of refugees will be met, and homes will be found. It’s a humanitarian issue.
If only the Arab governments would allow the Palestinians the same privileges.
In 2004, the Saudi government made a generous offer of citizenship to foreign nationals making long-term residence in their kingdom. This benevolent revision to their naturalisation law, however, would not apply to the 500,000 Palestinians living in the kingdom.
This exemption was in accordance to longstanding Arab League dictate that Palestinians living in Arab countries should not be given citizenship, supposedly to “avoid dissolution of their identity and protect their right to return to their homeland”.
A lot of Palestinians agree with the Arab League’s rule certainly, but the recent case of the US resettlement of Iraqi-Palestinian refugees proves that others reject this dogmatic policy that robs them of their right to choose their own path in life.
Most of these Palestinian refugees have lived comfortably in Iraq for more than a generation and repeatedly rejected any attempts to be sucked back into the morass of the conflict. They wanted to be treated like any other Iraqi war refugee, and they have been granted their wish.
It has been said that the United States felt a moral imperative to help resettle refugees caused by the war the US waged against Saddam Hussein. Isn’t it then high time for the Arab League to finally accept some responsibility for the refugee problem caused by their war waged on Israel in rejection of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, and at long last offer naturalisation to Palestinians that request it?
After all, nobody is asking Palestinians to surrender their Palestinian identity or give up any claims they may have.
Refugee resettlement is a humanitarian issue. For the sake of the people they claim to care about, it’s time for the Palestinian leadership and the Arab League to stop politicising it.
Editorial published in The AJN on July 17.