The open letter to the TIFF highlighted several reasons for the withdrawal from the festival. One reason was because that the festival was celebrating Tel Aviv as a city of diversity while Palestinian film-makers were absent from the program. Furthermore, the history of the city, which includes the struggles of Palestinian people is excluded and is also indirectly being celebrated through this spotlight.

“The emphasis on ‘diversity’ in City to City is empty given the absence of Palestinian filmmakers in the program. Furthermore, what this description does not say is that Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages, and that the city of Jaffa, Palestine’s main cultural hub until 1948, was annexed to Tel Aviv after the mass exiling of the Palestinian population. This program ignores the suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants of the Tel Aviv/Jaffa area who currently live in refugee camps in the Occupied Territories or who have been dispersed to other countries, including Canada.”

The letter also included another dimension of critcism against Israel by drawing parallels between Apartheid South Africa and Israel at times.

“Looking at modern, sophisticated Tel Aviv without also considering the city’s past and the realities of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip, would be like rhapsodizing about the beauty and elegant lifestyles in white-only Cape Town or Johannesburg during apartheid without acknowledging the corresponding black townships of Khayelitsha and Soweto.”

“However, especially in the wake of this year’s brutal assault on Gaza, we object to the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign on behalf of what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann have all characterized as an apartheid regime.”

The protest began originally with film-maker John Greyson from Canada who withdrew his documentary “Covered”, which is about the violence in Bosnia-Herzengovina that shut down the 2008 Sarajevo Queer Festival, the Washington Times reported. In a later email Greyson added that,

“We’re not protesting the Israeli films or the filmmakers our target is TIFF’s Spotlight on Tel Aviv itself, and specifically its connections to the ‘Brand Israel’ campaign and the Israeli Consulate, which make the spotlight look and feel like a propaganda exercise. As filmmakers and audiences, we’re telling TIFF that eight months since the Gaza massacre, this is no time to be uncritically ‘celebrating’ Tel Aviv”

Critics of the protest have also spoken out in favor of the festival and Israel. Rabbi Marvin Hier was critical of those who signed the letter and was reported by TMZ as saying that “Whoever would sign on to a campaign like this would support the complete destruction of Israel.” Jane Fonda replied to the accusations with a statement issued saying,

“I, in no way, support the destruction of Israel. I am for the two-state solution. I have been to Israel many times and love the country and its people.”

The director of the TIFF, Richard Moore also spoke out and called this protest an effort to censor the films and the festival saying that, “Loach’s demands were beyond the pale. As a supporter of independent film and filmmaking he should be ashamed of himself.”

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