Hijacking York University

Some people have not only the courage of their convictions but the ethical right to confront the convictions of others that prove inimical to themselves personally and society generally. One such individual is Canadian filmmaker Robert Lantos. Who has refused to lend the prestige of his successful professionalism to a process in which John Greyson is heavily involved as a staff member of York University.

The annual showcase of student-produced movies from York University was to have included the presence of Robert Lantos at Cinesiege, with himself critiquing the end-product of students' instructions by filmmaker, and York professor, Mr. Greyson. Mr. Greyson has previously distinguished himself by his 'activism', vigorously attempting to boycott Israeli films.

As a Jew, one who is very well aware of the history of Jewish agony within a world unfriendly to the aspirations of a people wishing nothing more than to be given the opportunity to live in peace among others, Mr. Lantos exercised his option as a free agent to absent himself from an event he recognized as being tainted by the presence of an anti-Semite.

We are all called upon at different times of our lives, through circumstances which cannot be ignored, to take a stand. Mr. Lantos made his. He has taken exception to Mr. Greyson's previous and ongoing activities which have slandered Israel, and by extension, all Jews.

Not only did Mr. Greyson launch a public relations campaign to decry the absence of Palestinian films and the presence of films produced in Tel Aviv at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, but he also went out of his way to urge universities to boycott a student film festival taking place in Tel Aviv.

Paid in kind, one might say, of Mr. Lantos's decision.

"When someone has made a practise out of attacking my people and hence me, I don't believe in simply passively waiting around until he does it again", he explained succinctly, in an interview. Making reference to the death march of European Jews during a fairly successful attempt to obliterate them entirely from earthly existence.

Mr. Greyson was an active participant in the "Canadian Boat to Gaza" in July, whose purpose was to embarrass, discommode, and certainly slander the government and the people of Israel. Whose sin was to attempt to protect themselves by blockading the conveyance of weapons to an adjacent geography whose administration has pledged to destroy Israel.

"John has a right to his views as a member of the faculty, but it's not like that's what he's teaching the classroom", claimed Amnon Buchbinder, chairman of York's film department, and the organizer of Cinesiege. Mr. Buchbinder has obviously made his own accommodation with his conscience, opting for expedience over morality.

To which Mr. Lantos's response puts the penultimate chapter: "I don't think it's appropriate for a university to be hijacked and used by those who have an agenda and whose agenda is to vilify an entire nation." Cinesiege through Mr. Greyson's involvement, sought to lay siege to the legitimacy of film production in Israel, leading to Israelsiege.

And finally, in the conflicted, aggrieved words of a young film student, Anne Feldman: "This is the place that harbours somebody who does just that ("...use the academic setting as a vantage point for attacks against the Jewish people").