The Zionist organization Im Tirzu applied to the Minister of Sports and Culture Miri Regev (Likud) and Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Dov Kalmanovich, and requested that the “Nakba” film festival sponsored by Zochrot be cancelled.
The film festival is set to take place on Tuesday at Jerusalem’s Cinematheque theater, and commemorates the "Catastrophe" - namely the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 and the failure of Arab armies to destroy the nascent state.
Im Tirzu argued that “since the Cinematheque is funded by both the municipality and the Ministry of Sports and Culture, we find it a very serious grievance that the establishment will screen films whose sole purpose is to wipe out and nullify the right of the Jewish nation to live in the land of Israel, and the right of the state of Israel to exist as a democratic and Jewish state.”
“There is no argument that filling Israel with millions of Palestinian refugees will not only turn it into a Palestinian country, but will also turn it into a killing field between different groups of people as is commonplace in the rest of the Middle East. It is therefore clear that the vision of the anti-Israeli organization Zochrot is not realistic and does not deserve to be addressed.”
The letter continues and says, “we, the members of Im Tirzu, therefore demand that this festival be cancelled permanently. In addition the budget of the Cinematheque should be conditional to cancelling this festival, and the prevention of such items in the future."
Deputy Mayor Dov Kalmanovich responded to the letter and said, “legitimizing the message of the Zochrot organization, and providing an anathema organization that supports terror on an ideological level, will bring more individuals to continue to perpetrate physical acts of terror in Jerusalem and the entire country. It is unfathomable to believe that specifically now we will give a platform and open the gates to this wild, anti-Zionist and damaging incitement from the extreme left wing production houses.”
Kalmanovich promised that “I will act in whatever way I can to change the decision to have the festival held at the Cinematheque in Jerusalem. Not in an effort to close their mouths and prevent democracy, but rather in favor of democracy and in its defense and in the defense of the state of Israel as a beacon of morality in the Middle East. We are not only protecting the country as an entity, but also its citizens who are being killed in terror attacks. If these extreme left wing organizations succeed, Israel will be forever and irrevocably changed, and that is my greatest worry.”