Douglas Murray is spot on when he notes that these people want, above all, "give themselves both a little puff of publicity and simultaneously signal their loyalty to all modern virtues". They do not write letters about the terrible predicament of the Roma people in Europe, or the atrocities perpetrated against Christians in the Muslim world - such causes are not taken up by them because they don't just make it to the newspapers.
Douglas Murray writes @ The Gatestone Institute:
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| Ken Loach and Miriam Margolyes |
The letters page of
The Guardian in the UK is regularly filled
with letters, jointly signed by "correct-thinking" people who hope that
in so doing, they will give themselves both a little puff of publicity
and simultaneously signal their loyalty to all modern virtues. The
pecking order can be rough. Ordinarily the paper selects the headline
names to put under the letter and then adds "and 57 others" or some
such. So if you're the
Guardian's idea of a household name, your
name will get in print. But if you are one of the space-filler "C-list"
celebrities, people will have to guess whether you are among the
"others."
The letter that went into the
Guardian this week was unusual in having almost nobody sign it who is a household name.
The letter
was a demand from a group of "artists, producers and concerned
citizens," who, it said, "are disappointed and saddened to see that
Curzon, Odeon, Bafta and other cinemas are hosting the London Israeli
Film and Television Festival." It takes a particular type of ego to
think their "sadness" should be the subject of a public declaration;
however, these saddened signatories warned that, "This comes at a time
when the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement
against Israel is gaining unprecedented momentum, and the Israeli
government is finding itself increasingly isolated for its systematic
violation of Palestinian human rights, the Geneva conventions, and
international law." [...]
Anyhow, their interminable letter continues to declare that the
screening of Israeli films in these circumstances makes the cinemas
"silent accomplices" to violence. For a profession so obsessed with
glorifying violence, you would think that the signatories would be more
careful about throwing around such charges, but almost none of the
signatories seems to have anything much to do with film. Of the more
than forty signatories, only Ken Loach and Mike Leigh could have any
claim to prominence in their field. Some people may remember Miriam
Margolyes -- another signatory -- for a bit-part in one of the Harry
Potter films, but these days she is best known for signing anti-Israel
joint letters "as a Jew." The other signatories include as their
occupation "activist," a "Theatre Maker," a schoolteacher and a
university lecturer from Bournemouth. [...]
The letter -- and the surrounding furore -- is simply the
latest in a series of attempts to make Israeli and indeed Jewish culture
"forbidden." In London, we have had Israeli orchestras, theatre
companies and even string quartets howled down by mobs during
performances, and Israeli-performed shows cancelled because the venues
hosting them just do not want the bother. Last year, the Tricycle
Theatre in London refused to proceed with a festival of "Jewish" culture
because a tiny proportion of the festival's funding was coming from the
Israeli embassy in London.
The campaign is obviously organized. The same names crop up again and
again. Little, if any, rigour is paid to whether the signatories of
such letters even do what they say do, or have opinions worthy of any
note. Beneath the barely-built veneer of "professionals objecting to
something in their own profession," is just the same tiny number of
anti-Israel and anti-Jewish obsessives. A sprinkling of "as a Jew" Jews,
like Margolyes, help, of course. But the aim is clear. These people,
step by step, want to make every expression of Israeli and Jewish
cultural life subject to their idea of how a nation under constant
threat of terrorist bombardment should behave. They denounce Israel as a
militaristic society and then attempt to outlaw every non-militaristic
cultural and artistic expression from that society.
It is the bigotry of our time. And if unchecked, it will lead in the
same direction as it historically has done. Thankfully, although few
people have seen the films of those self-important
Guardian
letter signatories, we have all seen this larger, historical film -- and
it is not one that decent people would like to see repeated.
