The furore of the Tricycle theatre, which has pulled out of hosting the UK Jewish film festival this year over concerns of funding from the Israeli government, was debated on Newsnight on Wednesday, with Simon Johnson, Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, and Philippe Sands, board member of the Tricycle, locking horns over what has become a hugely sensitive issue.
“This looks to people in our community that this is a discriminatory boycott,” said Johnson, arguing that the theatre has “tried to look at Jewish culture through the prism of its opinion of Israeli government policy; if you were holding an Islamic film festival, it’s as though you’d be looking at it through the prism of the Syrian government.”
Sands rebuffed: “The Trickle has simply said, while this crisis is in the current situation… we won’t take funding from any part in the conflict.”
Watch the debate above...