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Have our cultural icons lost their collective minds?

Across the cultural landscape – music, film, books – it certainly seems that way. Musicians, filmmakers, authors have apparently persuaded themselves that they alone can solve the Middle Eastern crisis from their distant perches in Canada or the U.S. or Europe.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, most politicians generally know they lack the superpowers to single-handedly end wars like the one raging between Israel and Hamas. But some self-important culture types clearly think they do.

Take TIFF for example (please). In the past few days, as the entire world knows by now, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey and his Toronto International Film Festival adamantly refused to screen a documentary based in Israel by acclaimed Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich – after having previously promising that they would.

Why? Well, many suspected latent antisemitism played a role with unseen forces at TIFF. This writer wondered if Hamas’ banker – Qatar – had put pressure on TIFF, with whom it has quietly partnered since 2019.

TIFF’s stated reason? Avrich and his fellow producers had failed to secure permission from Hamas – to show some Hamas footage in the documentary! (We are not making this up, as much as we wish that we were.) It was absurd and insane: Bailey and TIFF wanted a terror group’s approval first.

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