Sir (Northampton North) (Con):
The Seret International Israeli Film Festival runs for a couple
of weeks from today. Wonderful independent films will be shown in
arthouse cinemas across the world. But of course antisemites are
trying to bully and intimidate cinema chains into not showing the
films and, in some cases, are sadly succeeding. Would the Curzon
or Picturehouse cinema chains decline to show films made by the
black community because of a war in Africa? Obviously, the answer
is no, and the reason is because that would be racist. So it is
with those sick antisemites whose loathing for Jewish people is
so extreme that they are now trying to boycott Jewish culture in
the UK. Will my right hon. Friend agree to organise a debate in
this place to support Jewish art and culture? Perhaps Parliament
could even show one of the independent films, which have nothing
to do with the conflict in the middle east, here in one of the
Committee rooms, for example.
: I thank my right hon. and
learned Friend for giving us a very good example of how
antisemitism gets a hold. It starts with things like this, which
might seem a reasonable thing for a venue to do but clearly is
not. The way he sets it out illustrates why it is not. It is
really disturbing and I hope that all Members recognise that this
community is really under attack. We need to be absolutely
unequivocal and say that we stand with them, and that we will do
everything we can to protect them and call out antisemitism
wherever it is.
