Increasingly hard to believe...

Breitbart:

THE CANADIAN PRESS TORONTO - A group of actors, authors, musicians and activists is circulating a letter of protest about a special program at the Toronto International Film Festival focusing on Tel Aviv and Israeli culture.

The letter, which has been endorsed by the likes of Naomi Klein, Jane Fonda, David Byrne and Danny Glover, suggests festival organizers have been complicit with "the Israeli propaganda machine" by planning to screen the 10 films without any balancing Palestinian narratives in the program.

I expect that these films are part of a campaign to "humanize" Israel. But? So what? All sorts of causes (Tibet, Mexican immigration, those seeking drug legalization or the end of the Iraq war) attempt to gain more exposure through film. Denizens of Hollywood should understand this better than most. So any complaint that films might, individually or collectively, promote an agenda (or serve as "propaganda") can hardly be seen as sincere, given the specific personalities involved here, and their own pet causes.

The sticking point seems to be that the films are on Israeli culture. Yet would a film on American culture need a "balancing narrative" covering culture in Mexico? Would a film on English culture require a "balancing narrative" explaining the culture of the Welsh? What is so odious about Jewish culture per se (and uniquely so, apparently) that any presentation of it requires a voice condemning it for even existing?

And if "balance" is important to these particular people, then where are their calls for Arab culture to be more balanced? Have they signed petitions demanding freedom of expression and conscience for Christian workers living in Saudi Arabia? Have they protested the persecution of Christian converts in Malaysia? Are they actively boycotting China and anything China-related because of China's oppression of other cultures within its borders? And, specifically, how about a public and rousing condemnation of the relentless persecution of religious (and sexual) minorities with Palestine, whose culture they apparently champion?

(Crickets chirping.)

Of course not. Somehow, Israel, even Israeli culture — not merely the state, but the culture — must not be even be presented in film, sans obligatory condemnation. There is a tendency among my opponents to equate every disagreement with Nazism (and/or racism), but I suggest they should look sincerely among their own ranks for people who judge the largest community of Jews in the world using rules and standards they clearly apply to no other nation or culture.