From the WSJ Opinion Archives
LEISURE & ARTS
Scots Film Mavens
To Israelis: Get Lost
The kerfuffle over the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
HAIFA, Israel--The Edinburgh International Film Festival, commonly known as EIFF, is having a wee squabble these days with the State of Israel, commonly known as Little Satan. This year's festival includes "Five Days," an Israeli film documenting Israel's retreat from Gaza in August 2005. In a surprising lapse of political prudence, EIFF had agreed to receive Israeli Embassy funding so the film's director, Yoav Shamir, could attend the festival. But the current Israel-Lebanon war threw EIFF into disarray: How could it possibly accept Israeli money, smeared with innocent Lebanese blood? Besides, Muslim filmmakers and antiwar pressure groups threatened to boycott the festival if Edinburgh took the shekels.
Thank goodness for Scottish level-headedness. Since "the situation has altered dramatically," as artistic director Shane Danielsen put it, EIFF promptly told the Jewish State to keep its money to itself. It also reportedly removed "Five Days" from the festival's educational program, lest innocent students be fouled by Israeli propaganda. And it emailed Mr. Shamir some friendly advice: "It might be in your best interest not to attend the festival this year," an EIFF official sweetly suggested, "for your own sake, rather than for ours." Just imagine: an Israeli filmmaker being chased down Canongate by a crowd of antiwar cinema buffs and pacifist British Muslims! How inconvenient.
Mr. Shamir's film records one of the most painful and hopeful moments in recent Israeli and Palestinian history, the pullout from Gaza of all Israeli military and civilian presence a year ago. His account of the evacuation depicts the inner rifts and the military risks accepted by a majority of Israelis last August, in the hope that Gaza could lead the way to a peaceful neighborhood with a future sovereign Palestine. Hope blew up in a barrage of Kassam missiles on southeastern Israel a few months later. A previous Shamir documentary, "Checkpoint," pointedly criticized the Israeli government and army for their treatment of Palestinian civilians during the Intifada. Yet Mr. Shamir became the enemy of peace in Edinburgh this summer.
The Israeli government is obviously to blame. How dare it fund festival tickets for filmmakers and artists who criticize its own policies? How dare it support the circulation of Israeli books, theater, cinema and art in the world, regardless of their authors' political positions?
It comes as a relief to hear from EIFF that Mr. Shamir's film will be screened after all, and that he was asked to stay away only for caution's sake. What did Walter Scott say in "Rob Roy"? "A Coward calls himself cautious, a miser thrifty." Mr. Shamir, meantime, told an Israeli newspaper that he will go to Edinburgh: "I do not fear conflict or debate. . .movies are tools for creating dialogue between people." Troublesome lad.
EIFF said its email was "taken out of context." I, for one, find it deep in context. As a lover of things Scottish, and a scholar of Scottish history, I regret the uncharacteristic don't-bother-to-check-the-facts approach that belies so many well-meaning Scottish reactions to the complex case of the Mideast conflict. After all, Edinburgh is the city of David Hume, who once said that "a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."
So, should Israelis boycott the Edinburgh Film Festival? Oh, no. We are lousy boycotters, being far too curious and too prone to cultural pluralism. Instead, when the Haifa International Film Festival is held again--after we clear up all those missiles launched by the victimized Hezbollah into the streets around the Carmel Center Cinematheque--let's screen some Scottish films alongside the numerous Arab features and documentaries that have been shown at the festival for the past 23 years. But no Scottish money, please. We'll pick up the tab.
Ms. Oz-Salzberger is a senior lecturer in history at the University of Haifa.
