Toronto film festival bows to antisemitic protesters

The folks in charge of the Toronto International Film Festival now claim they were never going to prevent the screening of a documentary that tells the truth about Hamas’ horrific Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks — but the disclaimers are so hedged (and dishonest) that you still can’t be sure the show will go on.

First and foremost is the absurd excuse that TIFF’s lawyers supposedly thought the filmmaker needed “legal clearance” to use clips of the savagery as filmed and livestreamed by the terrorists on their GoPros.

That is, permission from Hamas to use footage of the terrorists mauling women and slaughtering innocents.

Nonsense: Several other movies have already used such footage; one of them, “We Will Dance Again,” won an Emmy in June!

Rather, this was obviously a wormy way to get out of showing Canadian director Barry Avrich’s “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” which shows how retired Israeli Gen. Noam Tibon rescued his family and other survivors of the Oct. 7 attacks.

Because the truth might make viewers more sympathetic to Israel.

Of course the TIFF folks carefully didn’t complain about that, though they did say the risk of protests against the movie might also make it impossible to show.

(We’ve also heard suggestions that festival staff were threatening to walk off the job if the documentary wasn’t scrubbed.)

Sorry: Admitting you’ll censor in the face of such threats makes a mockery of TIFF’s vow that “we will defend artistic excellence and artistic freedom.”

And falling back on spurious worries about terrorists’ intellectual-property rights is still blatantly knuckling under to the hecklers’ veto.  

Cameron Bailey, the TIFF CEO, denies “censorship” was ever in play, claims he’s “committed” to showing the film and has his legal team “considering all options available” to somehow show it after all. 

We understand not wanting to admit that Israel-haters are running the show at your festival, but Bailey’s careful hedging shows that he’s not even certain he can defy the antisemites’ wishes.