Film Workers for Palestine respond to Israel legal action: “We will never be deterred”
Film Workers for Palestine have responded to legal action being threatened by Israeli representatives against UK production studios, saying: “We will never be deterred.”
On October 13th, Variety reported that a letter had been sent to prominent entertainment organisations within the UK, including Netflix, the BBC, and Disney, by a group named UK Lawyers for Israel.
They stated that a current Hollywood boycott of the country, in light of the ongoing war in Gaza, “creates a dangerous precedent” as it could potentially be in breach of the UK Equality Act, thus threatening that government funding and insurance policies could be pulled from productions as the law applies to organisations as well as people.
However, Film Workers for Palestine has now responded to these claims. In a statement seen by Far Out, they said: “We are heartened that over 5,000 film workers have joined our pledge to refuse to work with Israeli film institutions that are implicated in whitewashing and justifying Israel’s genocide and apartheid against Palestinians.”
The group continued: “We are unimpressed by pro-Israel lobby group UK Lawyers for Israel’s desperate attempt to curtail our signatories’ freedom of expression through its pitiful letter. This kind of intimidation tactic is used so commonly and unethically by UKLFI that a formal complaint was filed with the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority in Britain over ‘a seeming pattern of vexatious and legally baseless correspondence aimed at silencing and intimidating Palestine solidarity efforts.’”
Thousands of prominent names in Hollywood, ranging from Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Joaquin Phoenix all signed the pledge from Film Workers for Palestine when it was launched last month, promising that they would not work with film institutions in Israel while the war continues.
The organisation concluded their statement by adding: “We will never be deterred from our work to end complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid and will continue contributing to a global movement aimed at Palestinians achieving their UN-stipulated rights. It is a legal and moral imperative all should uphold, and we thank our community of artists who stand resolutely for humanity.”
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