Ramallah: The Administrative Council and the Executive office of  Al- Quds Capital of Arab Culture 2009 expressed appreciation of the courageous and moral position of the Canadian Director John Grison in his objection and withdrawal of his film from the Toronto Film Festival. The Council and  have  also expressed appreciation of the courageous criticism by a selected and distinguished group of intellectuals and directors against the festival ,for its bias in honoring the city of Tel- Aviv in its festival held on September 9^th with  participation of 335 films representing 64 countries.

The Council and the  office appreciated the open letter sent by the intellectuals to the festival’s organizers announcing their courageous position in refusing to participate in the festival because f its alignment with the Israeli propaganda machinery , ignoring by that the suffering of thousands of Palestinians - originally from Tel Aviv and Jaffa region- and who are currently camp refugees. Looking at modern and civilized Tel Aviv without consideration of the past and the realities of occupation is similar to the appreciation if the beauty of life in the white cities of South Africa during the Apartheid.

On Monday, The Executive Office greeted the filmmakers’ opposition of Palestinian, Arab and western filmmakers    for their organization of a boycott campaign against the festival and campaigning under the logo “Tel Aviv was established through violence and had ignored thousands of its original inhabitants and citizens”, while expanding over the land of Jaffa and turning it through racist policies into a marginalized suburb of Tel- Aviv.

The Council and Office stressed that the occupier exerts all efforts to erase the collective historical memory of the Palestinian people and steels its history and civilization and ignores the Arab heritage of the Palestinian people present on its land and who built its towns and villages and weaved its culture and creativity. They stressed the need for the unity of intellectuals and their supporters throughout the world to oppose the Israeli propaganda which excels in transforming victims to monsters. The Council and the office have further called for additional medial and cultural activities to expose Israeli programmed policies against the occupied city which aim at completely isolating the city from its Arab and Palestinian world and expropriating its land to expand surrounding illegal Israeli settlements and completing the construction of the Apartheid wall, demolishing homes  and suffocating the city’s  inhabitants whilst forcing them to “ voluntarily” leave their city under the pretext of the  Israeli voiced policy of  “ Silent Transfer”.