At Socialist Unity, John Wight of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign is pleased to report the decision of the Edinburgh International Film Festival to return £300 in sponsorship money from the Israeli Embassy of the UK.
The Israeli Embassy was also removed from the Honour Board of sponsors of the festival scheduled for next month.
Their decision follows the Scottish PSC call earlier today for a protest outside the Filmhouse in Edinburgh where the EIFF is based. Mention of the Israeli Embassy on the EIFF’s ‘Honour Board’ was removed after [Managing Director Ginnie] Atkinson and the EIFF admitted that “it was a mistake to accept the £300 from the Israeli Embassy”.
The festival will feature films from both Palestine and Israel— or at least I hope they won’t also be pressured to expel the Israeli entry.
(By the way the Palestinian entry, Pomegranates and Myrrh, deals harshly with the Israeli occupation and settlement of the West Bank. And yet those horrible Israelis were willing to support a festival that is screening it. Go figure.)
Earlier Socialist Unity reported that Ken (“Understandable”) Loach and George Galloway had supported a boycott of the festival unless the Israeli sponsorship was withdrawn.
However Israel’s removal from the Honour Board still leaves at least one other dodgy sponsor for Wight, Loach, Galloway et al to tolerate: the (shudder) US Consulate General.
Update: I’d love to see a list of the countries other than Israel whose sponsorship would be cause for a boycott of the festival, according to Loach, Galloway and Wight.
Further update: Leftwing Scottish blogger Kevin Williamson had an interesting post last month about Scottish PSC activist and Socialist Unity contributor John Wight.
(Hat tip: Joe99)
