A Vancouver comics festival apologized to a Jewish artist it had banned over her past Israeli military service and a Seattle museum announced it was recommitting to an exhibit on antisemitism that prompted a staff walkout, in two reversals of North American arts-world sanctions connected to the Israel-Hamas war.Those who left the convention's board are no loss, and do not belong in the entertainment business in any way, shape or form. Yet even now, much like Bud Light's transsexual scandal a few years ago, maybe anybody planning to boycott VanCAF should continue to do so, and definitely sit out this year's festival, which, for all we know, could end up being the last, if sponsors wise up and pull funding for them.
Both the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival in Canada and the Wing Luke Museum in the United States had faced significant backlash over the actions they took because of pro-Palestinian activism.
“VanCAF has lost and continues to lose the trust of many we have sought to serve,” the Vancouver festival said in a social media apology late Sunday, days after announcing that it was banning American-Israeli comics artist Miriam Libicki following activist complaints over her past IDF service.
The festival didn’t name Libicki in either its initial statement banning her — which it quickly removed from social media following backlash — or its lengthy new apology. But the ban referenced Libicki’s previous IDF service, which she has turned into a comic, while the apology referenced another specific work of hers: “But I Live,” a collaboration with Holocaust survivors.
After criticism from both Libicki and leaders of major Canadian Jewish institutions, VanCAF said in its apology that “the vast majority” of people involved in the ban have resigned from its board. The group said it was entering a new “transition period” as a result of the fallout, and added that it has no full-time staff and it is entirely volunteer-run.
“Conflating the political with the practical safety of those attending our festival was the wrong stance to take,” the apology noted. VanCAF said it had issued the ban as a result of safety concerns after deeming that pro-Palestinian backlash to Libicki’s presence at its last two festivals had created a “volatile atmosphere.”If the aforementioned pro-palestinians who caused a ruckus were to antagonize early comics contributors like Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (one of whom was Canadian-born), were they still alive today, would that sit well with VanCAF's management, which committed an act of cowardice if the above news is correct? What they should really be doing is hiring security to keep out any and all of these obsessed troublemakers, and should be vetting all workers they hire to make sure they're not obsessed with censoring anything positive in regards to Israel, and/or censoring any objective and critical view of Islam. There's a cartoonist named Bosch Fawstin, who's a former Muslim from regions like Albania, who's bravely criticized the Religion of Peace which he left, and people like him, tragically, are blacklisted by these pretentious festivals. All this cowardly panic is not helping to defeat jihadism at all, and the failure to seriously confront issues like Islamic terrorism have the effect of making movies and comics about the Holocaust look like a joke. If modern showbiz writers won't confront a modern issue, how can we believe they really care about a past one? Also consider issues like the Korean and Vietnam wars practically vanished from entertainment nearly 3 decades ago, are rarely discussed since, and WW1-related issues like the Armenian Genocide by Turkey's Islamic Ottoman empire, are also banned from study, in film, comics and other mediums in the west. This is exactly why the war against terrorism's been lost for many years.
(A synagogue in Vancouver was targeted in an arson attack last week, elevating alarm after shooting attacks on Jewish sites in Toronto and Montreal. Authorities in Vancouver are investigating the arson as a hate crime.)
VanCAF is one of a growing number of arts institutions to face turmoil over the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack, which has left some Jews feeling uncertain about their place in the arts world.
In Seattle, the Wing Luke Museum, an Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander heritage museum in Chinatown, will move forward with an exhibition on how the region’s Asian, Jewish and Black communities have all jointly responded to hate. The announcement came days after several museum staffers walked off the job, objecting to what they said were “Zionist perspectives” in the exhibit; the museum had temporarily shuttered following the walkout.
“We remain committed to the exhibit’s core message of confronting hate,” the museum said in a joint statement with the Washington State Jewish Historical Society, an exhibit partner, and the Black Heritage Society. “We acknowledge the complexity of this deeply challenging work. We understand that the bigotry, bias, and racism that affects our communities goes well beyond us to touch many. Though recent events have caused significant harm, we are undeterred.”
The three groups also said they would make some unspecified changes to the content, “offering additional framing on its genesis, the initial public reaction, and the history of our communities working together” before the exhibit reopens June 30. Staff had objected to some of the exhibit’s descriptions of modern-day antisemitism, including the inclusion of campus protests over October 7, and had demanded that the museum make changes including acknowledging a lack of Palestinian perspectives. The exhibit had been in the works since before October 7.
For now, it remains to be seen if the "unspecified changes" the aforementioned groups announced they'd make will be honest ones. And if they continue to tiptoe around serious issues, they've effectively failed their mission, and VanCAF should continue to be boycotted to boot.
