Monday, September 14, 2009

Naomi Klein and the TIFF - is it just me or is she racist?

Below is a quote by Naomi Klein from Democracy now.

She says that they (Toronto Declaration) just want to apply the same standards to Israel as they would everyone else, however when speaking of the Tamil situation she says they instead of we.

http://i3.democracynow.org/2009/9/14/no_celebration_of_occupation_1_500


Toronto has a huge population—a huge Tamil population, very active. They would have been protesting outside, because it would have been perceived as a sort of a whitewash in a year that the Sri Lankan government rightly stands accused of war crimes.
For some reason, Israel is supposed to be the exception, and we are accused of singling out Israel. But, in fact, what we’re doing—and when you look at the people who have signed our letter, like Howard Zinn, Harry Belafonte, Eve Ensler, these are people who have devoted their lives to applying human rights standards across the board. They’re not singling out Israel. What they’re saying is, we insist on applying the same standards that we apply to every other country to Israel, as well. And just as we wouldn’t celebrate another country that stands accused of war crimes, we don’t believe it’s apolitical to celebrate Israel.