Nearly 70 Palestinian filmmakers have signed a letter accusing Hollywood of racism for daring to investigate the ties of Emmy nominee Bisan Atef Owda to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terrorist organization.
A Jewish group, Creative Community for Peace (CCFP), drew attention earlier this month to Owda’s terrorist ties.
In a press release dated August 19, it said:
More than 150 entertainment industry leaders signed an open letter released by the nonprofit organization, Creative Community For Peace (CCFP), urging the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) to rescind the Emmy nomination of Bisan Atef Owda for the 2024 News & Documentary category.
The letter, which comes in response to Owda’s nomination for the documentary “It’s Bisan From Gaza and I’m Still Alive,” calls on NATAS to rescind the nominations due to Owda’s documented ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a United States-designated terrorist organization.
The letter expresses deep concern that honoring an individual who has actively participated in PFLP rallies and disseminated antisemitic content legitimizes a terrorist organization and undermines the integrity of the Emmys.
TheWrap.com noted:
CCFP, a pro-Israel nonprofit organization, discovered Owda’s long-standing ties to PFLP, which has been a designated terrorist organization in the U.S. since 1997. The journalist regularly spoke at PFLP rallies and hosted events to honor Palestinians injured or killed in violent confrontations with Israeli soldiers. In 2018, the PFLP explicitly referred to Owda as a member of the Progressive Youth Union of the organization.
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PFLP, which became known in the 1970s for its airplane hijackings, also participated in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of over 1,200 Israeli citizens and the kidnapping of hundreds of others.
The Emmys investigated and decided not to rescind Owda’s nomination because it could not “corroborate” reports of her links to terror.
The Palestinian filmmakers decided to accuse Hollywood of “racism” anyway. In a letter dripping with antisemitic innuendo and false accusations against Israel, the Palestinian filmmakers attack the entertainment industry for supposed bias against Palestinians.
The letter was presented in full by Variety. It states, in part:
Trying to censor Bisan’s voice is only the latest repressive attempt to deny Palestinians the right to reclaim our narrative, share our history, and in this case bring attention to the atrocities our people are facing in the hopes that we can bring an end to them. We well understand the power of image and cinema, and for far too long we have been outraged at the inhumanity and racism shown by some in the Western entertainment industry towards our people, even during this most difficult of times.
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We wholeheartedly welcomed the nomination of Bisan Owda’s film for an Emmy as an indication that, after so many years of Israel’s apartheid and settler-colonial rule over the Palestinian people, the relentless, decades-old dehumanization of Palestinians on small and big screens in the U.S., in Hollywood in particular, was beginning to give way to a more ethical stance. The censorship attempt against the film, though, was a reality check of sorts. We must still contend with and fiercely challenge the anti-Palestinian and generally anti-Arab racist propaganda that remains all too prevalent in Western entertainment media.
The letter does not condemn the October 7 terror attack.
As for “apartheid,” the letter emerged one day after Israeli soldiers risked their (mostly Jewish) lives to rescue an Arab Muslim Israeli hostage from a Hamas tunnel in Gaza.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
