There are lots of people who don’t want the world to know about the horrors committed by Hamas on that day.
John Ware writes at Fathom:
7 October and the Alt-Media: a critical examinationLast May, London’s oldest cinema, the 112-year-old ‘Phoenix’ in East Finchley, became the target of a chillingly doctrinaire protest by Palestinian supporters.The cinema was due to host a private screening of an Israeli documentary called ‘Supernova – The Music Festival Massacre’[1]The documentary is mostly footage from Hamas’ own cameramen and GoPros, CCTV footage, dash cams and mobile phones of survivors of the Nova music festival-goers on 7 October. It succeeds in a way that no movie ever could by conveying in real time the paralysing terror of confronting death minute by minute in the face of marauding gunmen firing automatic weapons at anyone that moved and rocket propelled grenades at cars that tried to escape.The Israeli director Duki Dror says the footage is so horrific that ‘you have to say: “Humanity – please watch.”’[2] But pro-Palestinian activists including some of the UK’s best-known artists didn’t want anyone to watch. They demanded that any cinema planning to show the documentary boycott it.Wanting to ban a documentary that exposes the evils of Hamas – with footage shot by Hamas itself – takes some explaining, you might think. But not to the protesters. ‘Say no to art washing’[3] howled their red paint graffiti defacing the cinema’s iconic art deco frontage.It was left to Artists for Palestine UK (APUK) – whose 2000 plus members include film directors Mike Leigh and Ken Loach[4] – to explain the boycott rationale: the documentary had been ‘co-sponsored by the Israeli government.’ [5]Supporting APUK was a group called ‘Cultural Workers Against Genocide’[6] – the ‘genocide’ against Palestinians that is, not the one highlighted in the documentary.Equally surreal is the notion that the documentary has in some way been in cahoots with the Israeli government.It was one of twenty two independently produced Israeli documentaries, dramas, and comedies exhibited at an annual UK-Israeli film festival called Seret[7] which is a UK registered charity for the ‘advancement of education of the public arts, in particular Israeli film and television in the UK.’[8] 99 per cent of the cost of running the festival is raised by Seret from donations and crowdfunding.[9] Israel’s London embassy provides a token one per cent contribution,[10] and the festival’s annual launch has been attended by embassy representatives[11] – just as embassies of other countries routinely support festivals promoting their nation’s arts and culture.That’s the extent of the ‘co-sponsorship’ by the Israeli state which has had no editorial control over any of the programmes exhibited at Seret. As the festival’s co-founder Odelia Haroush explains, it’s ‘not about admiring Israel. It’s just about showing the cultural and social diversities within Israeli society through film.’[12] In any case, most Israeli film makers are on the Left, contemptuous of the Netanyahu government. The Israeli media generally is famously fiercely independent and critical of Israeli governments and institutions.
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