This Time Its Not Funny!

The Toronto film festival 2009 dedicated its City to City project to Tel
Aviv. This was a result of fruitful cooperation between the festival and the
Israeli ministry of foreign affairs as part of their effort to brand Israel
as an enlightened and liberal country. A group of artists and intellectuals organized by Naomi Klein published the Toronto Declaration pleading that the festival withdraw from this initiative and that artists protest
against the political use of art. After over fifteen hundred artists joined
the declaration, among them Ken Loach, John Grayson, Danny Glover,
David Byrne, and Jane Fonda. The UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and
the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles organized a counterdeclaration, which was signed by Sacha Baron Cohen, Jerry Seinfeld, and others.
Jewish international celebrities, from Jerry Seinfeld to Sasha Baron
Cohen, have come out once again, riding the horses of glory, to save Israel
from the cruel enemy that is to save Israel from us, those fighting for
human rights. They have published a counterdeclaration to the Toronto
Declaration. The latter, of which I am a codrafter along with Naomi Klein,
John Greyson, and others, protests the cooperation between the Toronto
Film Festival and the rebranding of the State of Israel as an enlightened
democratic state (instead of an occupying state). Whoever has read our
Published in Walla online magazine, September 16, 2009.

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