Boycotters forge Cameron and Fonda's signatures
Director James Cameron (Avatar) and actress Jane Fonda reacted with anger after their names were attached without their permission to a letter calling for a boycott of the Tel Aviv University student film festival. Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron has strongly condemned efforts to boycott Israeli artists after his name was wrongly added to one such recent petition.I wonder if this has happened with other famous people whose names were attached to letters against Israel without their permission.
“To suppress a gathering of artists, from afar, through boycott or any other means of exerting pressure, is wrong,” Cameron, whose latest movie, Avatar, recently became the highest-grossing film of all time, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
“It is ridiculous to punish artists for the actions of governments, under any circumstances,” he said. “And to ask other artists to exert political pressure on a government, no matter what one’s opinion of that government or its policies, by punishing artists, is obscene on its face.”
Cameron made his comments to the Post after a letter, which called on participants in this year’s Tel Aviv University student film festival to boycott the event, was circulated with his and Jane Fonda’s names as the initial signatories.
Fonda’s publicist, Pat Kingsley, told the Post that the world-famous actress “had nothing to do with this letter and knew nothing about it and does not agree with it.”
And Cameron, in an e-mail to the Post, explained that “I was dragged into this without permission or notification, and do not personally support the position of those who wrote the letter.”
He noted that he had received apologies for the mistake of including his name and added, “I hope, fervently, that the brief and erroneous use of my name did not influence others to sign.”
The draft petition, which originated in Canada, was circulated in recent weeks to gather signatures by “concerned film teachers, scholars and filmmakers,” according to the letter.
I also wonder what group in Canada originated this petition and who is financing them. Hmmm.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:24 AM
3 Comments:
That opens the organizers up for a theft of identity lawsuit, if they can be identified. I wouldn't want to be them. What they doing is despicable. I don't care much for Cameron's and Fonda's political views but this is a new low for those who hate Israel, that they have to steal people's signatures to push ahead their hate of the Jewish State. They deserve what they get coming to them!
It was originally a group at York University (notorious university). They also did not forge the signatures, but said in the letter that they would be recruiting big names like Jane Fonda and James Cameron to join in.
They didn't explicitly say that Cameron or Fonda gave their support, but it was implied that they would be willing to. The fact that they used their names, though probably added some gravity to the letter, and this was the main issue Cameron had with the whole thing.
There is a better article on it at the National Post: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2552812
John Greyson, film professor at York U and member of "Queers against Israeli apartheid" is one person responsible for this. But he is surrounded by the "usual suspects" here in Toronto - namely those involved with an org. called "Palestine House" - currently being investigated by the Cdn. gov. for immigration fraud.
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