As you can tell from my blog comments not to mention all the other internet activity circulating about the Toronto International Film festival protest letter that I signed along with 1500 or more friends and colleagues—there’s a lot of hatred spewing out there. I have not censored most of the hostile blog comments because I want to give space for the full range of voices. One of the hostile comments suggests that I wrote a follow up statement (released on the Huffington Post as well as on my last blog) because of pressure from Rabbi Marvin Hier with whom I met after I had begun composing my statement. What I said in my statement is true and I am not proud of it: I neglected to read the protest letter carefully enough. It was the outcry that ensued that caused me to study it very carefully. It was then that I saw that there were parts of it that I did not agree with. That is why I wrote my statement, not because I was pressured by anyone. It was a case of having to sit down, take a deep breath, go into a meditative state to clear away all the noise and zero in on my real feelings. I asked to meet with Rabbi Marvin Hier and others in the Jewish community to explain myself—why I was not taking my name off the protest letter but was issuing my own statement to clarify the things I didn’t agree with. I have learned a tremendous amount these last days and for that I am grateful. I’m also grateful for the outpouring of love and support..some from people I know, some from strangers. The statement of support from a group of Jews from Atlanta whom I don’t know made me cry. Then there’s the poem that Raeann McDonald wrote (it’s on this blog). She is the director of the retirement community in Oregon that Richard Perry’s mother, Sylvia, is a resident of. I got to know Raeann when she came to Los Angeles with Ms Perry. Such generosity and thoughtfulness!

One blog commenter asks how I maintain in the face of the hostility. It’s quite simply knowing who I am. That allows me to understand that what the attackers see is their problem and has nothing to do with me. I know my faults and try to own up to them but I also know I’m not what the venom-spouters think. It takes experience and age to stay confident in one’s reality—and to be free to admit when one has strayed from that reality, which was the case with some of the words in the TIFF protest letter.

Now I am back at my ranch, writing my book. There was a tremendous storm last night and the river is at least up a foot and very muddy. And—wonder of wonders at this early date—there’s a lot of snow on the mountains where the Santa Fe ski basin is. IT is soothing to be here and yesterday I took the most arduous hike since my knee was replaced. It was up the rocky slopes and through the fields that we cleared of trees 2 years ago. Lovely and diverse grasses and wildflowers now cover the ground that looked so barren after the trees were cut. I so adore the grasses here when the sunlight shines through them—so many varieties, most of them I know by name. The tree-cutting program is to conserve water, increase the grasses for the deer and reduce fire hazard. In this way, we restore the land to what it was before white Europeans arrived and began putting out forest fires. This high Chihuahuan desert used to be mainly savannah, not forest, and New Mexico simply doesn’t have the water to support an overgrowth of trees, much as I love them.

On that note, I’ll sign off. See you next time.

 So– I wake up this morning to a barrage of emails giving me a link to a web posting that has been widely picked up. It says that Rabbi Hier at the Simon Wiesenthal Center (he and I were friends—I thought) claims I support the destruction of Israel because I signed (along with many other artists, historians, including eight Israelis, mostly filmmakers) a petition protesting the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to feature a celebratory “spotlight” on Tel Aviv. We understand that by doing this the festival has become, whether knowingly or not,  a participant in a cynical PR campaign to improve Israel’s image, make her appear less war-like. The Israeli Consul General said a year ago that Toronto would be the launch site of an extensive “Brand Israel” campaign. Artists and others of us who love Israel do not want art to be used to whitewash the tragedies committed against Palestinians, most recently in last winter’s terrible war in Gaza (1400 Palestinians dead, mostly civilians, many more wounded, and there are documented human rights violations) and the ongoing blockade of Gaza that is deepening a serious humanitarian crisis, wreaking havoc on the lives of innocent people, and preventing reconstruction in the aftermath of the attack.
The letter we signed did not —repeat: DID NOT–call for a boycott of any part of the Toronto Film Festival. In fact, many of the people who signed the letter are showing films there and many of the Israeli filmmakers that go to the festival show films critical of Israel. We protest the use of Tel Aviv to rebrand Israel. We are standing up for integrity of art, not censoring anyone. The letter certainly did not call for the destruction of Israel or call into question the legitimacy of Tel Aviv as a city. But In the year when Gaza happened there shouldn’t be a celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv.

I have been to Israel many times. The first was in the early 1980s and it was love at first sight…for the country and for its people. I stayed in a Kibbutz with the great Israeli novelist, Amos Oz, and his family. I raised money for a senior center in Haifa, for a girl’s shelter in Jerusalem. I have spoken at the Hebrew University. I traveled into Lebanon with the Israeli army in 1981. I went deep into Russia in the  80s to secretly meet with Soviet Refusenik, Ida Nudel, after which I a national speaking tour in the U. S. to build support for letting Ida go to Israel where she now lives. In other words, I have been intimately involved with Israel over 3 decades. On almost every visit I also went into the West Bank, met with Palestinian artists, visited Palestinian refugee camps, drove through the Israeli settlements that encroach increasingly into Palestinian territory. I have seen suffering on both sides. It is out of love for Israel and all that it promised to be that I protest the use of art (which is meant to search for truth) in this branding campaign. The greatest “re-branding” of Israel would be to celebrate that country’s robust peace movement by allowing aid to be delivered to Gaza and stopping expansion of the settlements. That’s the way to show Israel’s commitment to peace, not a PR campaign. There will be no two-state solution unless this happens.