{"id":217729,"date":"2025-09-11T08:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T08:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/217729\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T08:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T08:37:09","slug":"israeli-film-industry-leaders-call-growing-boycott-counterproductive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/217729\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Film Industry Leaders Call Growing Boycott ‘Counterproductive’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn Sept. 8, a group of industry workers vowed<\/a> not to work with Israeli counterparts they contend are \u201cimplicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.\u201d Two days later, the list of co-signatories has ballooned to nearly 4,000 individuals, including Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Lily Gladstone, Tilda Swinton, Ava DuVernay, Yorgos Lanthimos as well as other Oscar, Emmy and Palm d\u2019Or winners.<\/p>\n

\n\tIsrael\u2019s industry leaders believe the boycott effort is misguided and self-defeating \u2014 that its effect only undermines and isolates a group of people who are, within the country, among the most sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and perhaps best positioned to give voice to it. \u201cFor decades, Israeli creators, artists, and storytellers \u2014 myself included \u2014 have devoted our work to reflecting the complexity of our reality,\u201d Nadav Ben Simon, chairman of the Israeli screenwriters\u2019 guild, told<\/a> The Guardian. \u201cIn times like these, we as creators must be devoted to amplifying the light, not deepening the darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe right-wing Israeli government and its allies in and out of the country have consistently rejected assertions by activists, scholars, human rights organizations and international legal bodies that the country is committing genocide and apartheid in the Palestinian territories. (The signatories\u2019 letter justifying its action<\/a> makes no mention of the Gaza-controlling militant organization Hamas, which prompted Israel\u2019s vengeance after it killed nearly 1,200 of its citizens in October 2023, nor the hostages which Hamas has held since.)<\/p>\n

\n\tMerav Etrog Bar, of the Directors Guild of Israel, and Lior Elefant, of Israel\u2019s Documentary Forum, noted in a joint statement: \u201cMany of the films and series, both documentary and narrative, produced in Israel have dealt with [the Palestinian crisis] with sensitivity, fairness, and critical thinking; there are thousands of examples of this. While Israeli filmmakers are not their government, we bear responsibility for its actions and find ourselves caught between a rock and a hard place: on one side, attempts at silencing from within, and on the other, international boycott from abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTzvi Gottlieb, CEO of the Israeli Film & TV Producers Association, tells The Hollywood Reporter the boycott is \u201ccounterproductive,\u201d explaining \u201cthere is no group in Israel that\u2019s been working as hard to promote anti-violence and has been as critical of this government. This industry \u2014 already small, already vulnerable \u2014 shows the damage of occupation. We need to be helped, not hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNone of the high-profile boycott signatories appear to have taken similar public positions against the Russian industry (considering the war against Ukraine) or the Chinese industry (given alleged human rights abuses against China\u2019s Uyghur Muslim population). \u201cIsraelis are the easy target,\u201d Gottlieb says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe boycott is focused on Israeli institutions including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies which may receive government support. Gottlieb notes that in Israel, as in many countries, art critical of the government is often supported by government funding: \u201cHere, we have Kan buying and ordering productions; in Britain, it\u2019s the BBC. The government has yet to tell us what you can\u2019t say.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLiat Benasuly, an Israeli Film & TV Producers Association board member and a producer of Netflix\u2019s Fauda, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict<\/a>, finds the boycott tragic and frustrating. \u201cI\u2019m extremely left, and I can\u2019t emphasize how much I\u2019m against this horrible government. My friends and all the artists here are like me. We are trying to change our reality \u2014 and [the signatories] are trying to silence our voices, our art, as we try to speak about this complex situation. This just helps this government, who\u2019d prefer we were silent, too. It\u2019s perfect for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sept. 8, a group of industry workers vowed not to work with Israeli counterparts they contend are…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":217730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[171,72757,31815,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-217729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-israel-gaza-conflict","10":"tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115184759485960096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}