TORONTO —  Ron Huldai, the three-term mayor of Tel Aviv, the world’s first Hebrew-speaking city, chuckled as he dismissed a recent open letter that accused the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) of being “complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine.”

Ron Huldai

“Tel Aviv is a symbol of democracy, tolerance and openness, a city of arts and culture,” he said in an interview last week. “If this is propaganda, I’ll take the blame.”

Huldai, in Toronto on behalf of the Tel Aviv Foundation, was reacting to the so-called Toronto Declaration, which was drafted by a group of local residents objecting to the festival’s City to City program, which focuses on Tel Aviv as it marks its 100th birthday.

Decrying Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip last winter, the protesters said that they objected “to the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign” on behalf of what they claimed was “an apartheid regime.”

Huldai said the City of City program was not affected by the protest and that all its tickets had been sold. “We’re still on the right track,” said Huldai, who attended a reception hosted here by Tel Aviv University’s department of film and television.

He said that while the City to City program was initiated by the festival, the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs was involved as part of its Brand Israel media and advertising campaign, which was launched last year.

Saying that the program was the first by a major film festival to focus on Tel Aviv, Huldai said its purpose is go beyond the Arab-Israeli conflict and show life as it really is in Israel today.

He added that neither he nor his staff met Cameron Bailey, its curator, during the visit to Israel to select the films for the program.

But Huldai bristled when he learned that Bailey, a co-director of the festival, had described Tel Aviv as “contested ground.”

“I have a problem relating to that,” said Huldai, a former combat pilot who has been mayor since 1998. “There is no dispute about the city of Tel Aviv. The founders of Tel Aviv bought the land. Only those who oppose Israel’s existence can speak that way.”

The 65-year-old mayor added, “Tel Aviv is a very vibrant, successful city which is celebrating its centennial with pride.”

In a jab at the protesters, he said, “Toronto exists on the grounds of an Indian settlement.”

Told that one of the organizers of the Toronto Declaration, writer and social activist Naomi Klein, is Jewish, Huldai said he was not surprised. “It was always in our history. I feel sorry for them.” Nonetheless, he noted that he respects freedom of speech.

Similarly, he respects the decision of Canadian filmmaker John Greyson to withdraw his documentary, Covered, from the festival on the grounds that Israel’s invasion of Gaza was “brutal.”

“He had a right to pull his film, but I don’t think it was the right thing to do. It’s his problem.”

The article “Tel Aviv mayor dismisses film fest protest” (Sept. 17) may have given an incorrect impression as the result of a comment by Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai about the Toronto International Film Festival’s choice of Tel Aviv for its City to City program.
“There was no Israeli official involvement in the decision to spotlight Tel Aviv in City to City, no Israeli funding and no involvement in programming,” Huldai said in a statement to The CJN.