The conservative-minded, Israel-embracing Washington Times ran a story yesterday about how right-wing director David Zucker and a couple of others are appalled that various leftie actors, writers and musicians have signed their name to a declaration posted by Naomi Klein and like-minded allies on Thursday, 9.3, in support of filmmaker John Greyson‘s protest against the Toronto Film Festival’s alliance with Tel Aviv, which was announced last May.

I summarized the basics in this 9.3 HE story.

Barry Brown‘s Times story quoted Zucker as saying he is “outraged” that actors such as Danny Glover and Jane Fonda, along with about 50 other activists (including David Byrne, playwright Eve Ensler, director Ken Loach, screenwriter Jeremy Pikser, film critic B. Ruby Rich, playwright/actor Wallace Shawn, writer Alice Walker and historian Howard Zinn), would sign a declaration that condemns Israel as an “apartheid regime” and dismisses the work of Tel Aviv filmmakers as “Israeli propaganda.”

On 8.27 Greyson released a public letter stating he would withdraw his film from the 10-day festival to protest, among various complaints, Israel’s military assault on Gaza earlier this year. Klein’s letter, titled “The Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation,” was posted two days ago on 9.3.

I wrote in my summary piece the same day that Greyson “essentially feels that Tel Aviv and the Israeli government have too much blood and militaristic aggression and kad karma on their plate to warrant partnership with a forward-thinking film festival like Toronto’s. And he’s arguing that TIFF’s Tel Aviv promotion flies in the face of an economic boycott against Israel that he and anti-Israel voices would like to see enforced in order to get Israel to be more reasonable and less belligerent in its dealings with the Palestinians.”