In praise of.......BDS

The Guardian usually has three editorial pieces, two on something current and third headed "In praise of...." and then it praises someone or something it deems praiseworthy.  Well today it's the turn of film and theatre director and writer, Mike Leigh.  Here's the piece:

The big mistake people make with Mike Leigh is to simplify him into caricature; he is much too various for that. He is the man who turned London into his own film set, so that to wander around the capital is to think of Naked, Happy-Go-Lucky, Secrets & Lies – yet he is a Salford boy. And of course his work is so distinctive in both focus and style that almost everybody knows what you mean by a "Mike Leigh film" – yet he famously creates his dramas through extensive improvisation and rehearsal. He is the angry socialist who sets conservative teeth on edge – yet his early and later work focus much more on the personal than the polemical. In short, Mike Leigh is a writer and director who zigs when you expect him to zag, who escapes easy pigeonholing by dint of squirming too much. Those who still think of Leigh as the poet laureate of anti-Thatcherism should catch the revival of his 1979 play Ecstasy, recently transferred to London's West End. Some of the classic Leigh elements are there: set in a bedsit in Kilburn, it features a fascinating argument about immigration and its impact on jobs (some things in Britain don't change). But the real theme of the play is loneliness: how people can be lonely even in others' company – and how they try to dress it up. It is not all bleak: the play studies a marriage seemingly sustained by booze – yet which somehow works. But most of all it is tender, with the central character, Jean, depicted as a gifted, interesting woman afloat on her own regret. It is not classic Leigh – but is another Leigh classic.

Hmm, wasn't he the chap who didn't realise what a balls-up he was making by agreeing to give a seminar in Tel Aviv? I think he was the man. It kicked up such a stink he withdrew and managed to expose his erstwhile host, Renen Schorr, as, well let's just say it exposed his host, Renen Schorr. Of course, no mention of any of that stuff but then The Guardian doesn't deem BDS praiseworthy.

Mike Leigh's Israeli friend responds

Sorry to keep revisiting this but I have now been sent a very short article setting out details of what appears to be a bit of a spat between Mike Leigh and the Israeli chap who invited him over in the first place. I said before that I don't know what Mike Leigh was thinking of by agreeing to go to Israel in the first place but I think he must have been manipulated. See this article from the New York Times's arts section:

In a letter dated Oct. 12, Mr. Leigh, the writer and director of “Another Year,” “Happy-Go-Lucky” and “Secrets & Lies,” said he would not travel to Jerusalem to teach at the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School, which Mr. Schorr directs.

Mr. Leigh wrote that he “always had serious misgivings about coming,” adding that he almost canceled after an incident in May in which Israeli commandos raided a Gaza-bound flotilla. The “last straw,” Mr. Leigh wrote, was the proposal of legislation by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, requiring that Israeli citizens pledge a loyalty oath to the “nation-state of the Jewish people.”

Mr. Leigh added that these and other actions by the Israeli government had left him “in an untenable position, which I must confront according to my conscience.”

Mr. Schorr wrote to Mr. Leigh in a letter dated Oct. 15, “I am certain that the decision is sincere and that it reflects your detailed, legitimate political views,” but added, “Boycotts and ostracism are the antithesis of dialogue.”

Mr. Schorr wrote that “the public will interpret your decision as indicating an irrevocable rift between us, a boycott of Israel, and a rebuke of its current and future artists.”

He added: “To me, this is a red line. Thus, I cannot justify your decision.”

I'd love to know the conversation that took place between them that had Mike Leigh agreeing to go over in the first place but I think Mr Schorr is being very disingenuous making out that dialoguing with internationals is somehow going to make a difference to the occupation, the colonial settlement, the ethnic cleansing, the segregation and the relentless violence that holds the whole thing together. What can internationals do by appearing in Israel? Give the impression that something is happening? Or give the impression that nothing is happening that need concern people of conscience?

Dialogue is a matter for the Palestinians but Israel hand picks the Palestinians with whom it will dialogue. If Israel is allowing international artists in for dialogue then the government must feel it has something to gain from the visits. Remember they even barred Chomsky and Finkelstein and they both support a two state solution and certainly Chomsky opposes a boycott. There's no pleasing Israel and there is certainly no point in appeasing Israel.