Israel Matzav: Boycotters forge Cameron and Fonda's signatures

Boycotters forge Cameron and Fonda's signatures

Director James Cameron (Avatar) and actress Jane Fonda reacted with anger after their names were attached without their permission to a letter calling for a boycott of the Tel Aviv University student film festival.

Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron has strongly condemned efforts to boycott Israeli artists after his name was wrongly added to one such recent petition.

“To suppress a gathering of artists, from afar, through boycott or any other means of exerting pressure, is wrong,” Cameron, whose latest movie, Avatar, recently became the highest-grossing film of all time, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

“It is ridiculous to punish artists for the actions of governments, under any circumstances,” he said. “And to ask other artists to exert political pressure on a government, no matter what one’s opinion of that government or its policies, by punishing artists, is obscene on its face.”

Cameron made his comments to the Post after a letter, which called on participants in this year’s Tel Aviv University student film festival to boycott the event, was circulated with his and Jane Fonda’s names as the initial signatories.

Fonda’s publicist, Pat Kingsley, told the Post that the world-famous actress “had nothing to do with this letter and knew nothing about it and does not agree with it.”

And Cameron, in an e-mail to the Post, explained that “I was dragged into this without permission or notification, and do not personally support the position of those who wrote the letter.”

He noted that he had received apologies for the mistake of including his name and added, “I hope, fervently, that the brief and erroneous use of my name did not influence others to sign.”

The draft petition, which originated in Canada, was circulated in recent weeks to gather signatures by “concerned film teachers, scholars and filmmakers,” according to the letter.

I wonder if this has happened with other famous people whose names were attached to letters against Israel without their permission.

I also wonder what group in Canada originated this petition and who is financing them. Hmmm.

Israel Matzav: Boycotters forge Cameron and Fonda's signatures