"WHAT: Protest of the Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema
WHEN: Thursday, 21 October, 6:00PM – 7:30PM
WHERE: Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St., Chicago
The Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago (PSG) and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and allies will call for the cutting of Chicago ties with Israel at the opening night of the Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema. The protest is part of an ongoing campaign calling on Chicago Sister Cities International, which is co-sponsoring the festival and whose offices are located in the Chicago Cultural Center, to drop the Israeli city of Petach Tikva from its program and end business-as-usual with apartheid Israel.
The festival is being promoted as 'The Real Reel Israel' yet we know that the fictional image of Israel as a liberal, multicultural state being trotted out at this festival is another PR attempt by the racist Israeli government and its supporters to whitewash the all too real Israeli military occupation, oppression of Palestinian citizens of Israel and the ongoing denial of the rights of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
We reject the Chicago Sister Cities’ cooperation with this festival which is organized and sponsored by Israeli government institutions and other groups that protect and promote US aid to apartheid Israel and its occupation of Palestinian lands, such as the Israeli consulate, the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, AIPAC, Friends of the IDF, and the Protect Our Heritage PAC.
We reject an official relationship between the City of Chicago and the Municipality of Petach Tikva in Israel, which is built on the remains of a Palestinian village destroyed and depopulated during the ethnic cleansing of 1948. Dubbed 'Israel’s Guantanamo' by Amnesty International, Petach Tikva is the site of the main interrogation center where Palestinians struggling for their rights are detained and tortured — including Palestinian civil society leader Ameer Makhoul, the latest grassroots activist to be tortured at Petach Tikva.
This campaign supports the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions measures on apartheid Israel and has been endorsed by pro-justice and community organizations such as the Chicagoans Against Apartheid in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace-Chicago, Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism, the US Palestinian Community Network, and various Chicago chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine." (source)
