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Frameline
directors Michael Lumpkin and Matt Westendorf responded
that “Frameline’s
senior staff and Board Executive Committee …recognize
that there are legitimate issues with some of the
actions of the Israeli government--as there are with
actions of our own government,” but have declined to
discontinue sponsorship.
Please
write, call or email Michael Lumpkin and Matt Westendorf
and let them know you disagree with their decision. Michael
Lumpkin & Matt Westendorf, Frameline, 145 Ninth
Street, #300, San Francisco, CA 94103, 415-703-8650,
email info@frameline.org
.
An
Open Letter to Program Director Michael Lumpkin and
Managing Director Matt Westendorf:
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For the last several
years, the Israeli Consulate-General has been a sponsor
of the San Francisco LGBT Film Festival.
In the last year, a
call has gone out from Palestinian artists and their
allies, including some Israelis, for a cultural boycott
of the Israeli government because of its appalling
disregard for international law and human rights. This
call has been joined by over 100 artists and writers,
including filmmakers Sophie Fiennes, Elia Suleiman,
Ken Loach, Haim Bresheeth, and Jenny Morgan ,
writers John Berger, Arundhati Roy, Ahdaf Soueif, and
Eduardo Galeano, and musicians Brian Eno and Leon
Rosselson. The call states, in part:
Given that all
forms of international intervention have until now
failed to force Israel to comply with international law
or to end its repression of the Palestinians, which has
manifested itself in many forms, including siege,
indiscriminate killing, wanton destruction and the
racist colonial wall,
…
In the spirit of international solidarity, moral
consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression,
We, Palestinian academics and intellectuals, call upon
our colleagues in the international community to
comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli
academic and cultural institutions as a contribution to
the struggle to end Israel’s occupation, colonization
and system of apartheid …
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In recognition of the
urgent and moral importance of this call, organizers of
both the Edinburgh and Locarno International Film
Festivals dropped Israeli government sponsorship of
their most recent festivals in 2006.
As members of the Bay
Area queer community, as members, former members and
prospective members of Frameline, and as members of
Frameline’s audience, we request that you
respect this call and not solicit or accept funding from
the Israeli consulate until Israel complies with
international law and international standards of human
rights in regard to its illegal occupation of Palestine.
As a community that
has experienced and continues to experience constant
denial of our human rights and indeed, denial of our
right to exist, our community has long been in the
forefront of struggles for human rights for all people.
We are very proud of this tradition, and we know that
you are too. For
an institution in our community to provide positive
publicity to a government whose human rights violations
have attracted worldwide censure disrespects this
tradition.
It offends our
commitment to inclusiveness, justice and nonviolent
resistance for the Israeli government to be among the
sponsors of one of the signature events of Pride month.
Sign
on (In the body of your email, please indicate
how you want your signature to appear, and if you are
willing to be listed publicly as a signatory).
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