Boycott Disturbing the Peace, a film promoting normalization: USPCN-Chicago calls for transparency and accountability from the Chicago Palestine Film Festival

Yesterday, April 24^th, members of USPCN-Chicago reached out to the leadership of the Chicago Palestine Film Festival (CPFF), and suggested that it cancel the screening of the film, Disturbing the Peace.  After watching the trailer, we noted that the film highlights an organization named Combatants for Peace.  These “combatants for peace” are former Israeli soldiers, and Palestinians who had previously been involved in various levels of resistance. They meet together to renounce violence and work for “peace.” This organization supports normalization, which is an ahistorical and utterly failed concept that assumes Palestinians and Israelis need only to meet, dialogue, and participate together in “normal” activities, like art, music, sports, academia, etc., for there to be peace between them.  Normalization is rejected by the vast majority of Palestinians, who insist that there should be no “normal” relationships with zionists, Israeli or otherwise, until Israeli occupation and colonization is ended.

For these reasons we are calling on all of our members and supporters to boycott the screening of the film this evening April 25^th.

In an email to the CPFF, we expressed our concern that the trailer pathologizes the Palestinians and our National Liberation Movement and asserts that our resistance attacks Israelis because of psychologically extreme feelings that are uncontrollable and inexplicable. Without offering any context, this presents the situation in Palestine as an issue of “people who have been fighting each other forever,” as opposed to the struggle of an occupied people against their oppressors.

The second glaring issue with the film is its equating of Palestinian resistance with Israeli terror, occupation, and violence. It frames both the Palestinian and Israeli subjects as rejecting all forms of “violence” to work for peace instead. The problem again is that our national liberation struggle, which is legally protected to resist occupation, is painted with the same brush as the colonial violence of the Israeli military.

In her response to our email yesterday, the director of the CPFF stated that she would not cancel the screening because, “we see this as an opportunity to create dialogue around these types of issues about the Palestinian cause and what the two sides see from their own point of view.” She further encouraged USPCN members to attend the screening and discussion, and ask questions of the director.

We declined the invitation because that is the core of the normalization project that we reject, that there are two equally legitimate points of view that should allow for a dialogue.

In addition to this call for the community to boycott the screening of Disturbing the Peace tonight, USPCN is calling on the Chicago Palestine Film Fest leadership to:

1. Publish its film selection and screening process, including naming the members of the selection committee;

2. Publish the criteria used to screen and select films, and explain why the Palestine National Liberation Movement’s thawabit (i.e., its constants/principles, the Right of Return, the end of zionist occupation and colonization of all Arab lands, and self-determination for the Palestinian people), as well as the international BDS call, are not part of that criteria; and

3. Encourage accountability to the Palestinian community of Chicagoland by offering opportunities for members of grassroots, community-based organizations like USPCN-Chicago to join its selection committee and other leadership bodies.

Those who agree with this statement and the call to boycott this film can also contact the Chicago Palestine Film Festival at info@palestinefilmfest.com, on Facebook @ChicagoPalestineFilmFestival and on Twitter @ChicagoPFF