Anti-Israel groups are once again angered by the participation of an Israeli filmmaker to one of Morocco's most known festivals. Organizers of the International Women Film Festival of Sale invited Simone Bitton, an Israeli-French documentary filmmaker of Moroccan descent. Anti-Israel movements are once again agitated over what they called normalization with Jewish Israelis. After members of the Boycott Divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) denounced the participation of an Israeli artist to the Tanjazz annual festival, a similar situation is making headlines again. This time controversy is surrounding the11th edition of the International Women Film Festival of Sale, organized between the 25th and 30th of September. The seven-day long festival, which is set to empower the presence of women in the cinematographic field and celebrate their achievements, is inviting Simone Bitton, a French-Israeli documentary filmmaker of Moroccan descent. The decision angered a number of activists who call for the boycott of Israel. The National Working Group for Palestine, a local organization that campaigns against the normalization with Israel, issued a statement on the 28th of September denouncing the presence of the French-Israeli filmmaker. Members of the group considered inviting Simone Bitton «provoking feelings of Moroccans and their steadfast position on the Zionist entity». «After inviting the Zionist soldier to the Tanjazz festival in Tangier, another figure is supposed to take part in the International Women Film Festival of Sale», wrote the group. They insisted that inviting «Simon Bitton who belongs to the Zionist entity, and carries a so-called 'Israeli nationality', and presenting her as a 'Moroccan-Israeli' is a way of falsifying history». «We also ask Moroccans to be careful and fight against the hidden agendas that try to penetrate their beliefs to justify Zionist normalization», the National Working Group for Palestine indicated. Inviting an Arab Jew to the International Women Film Festival of Sale For the record, Simone Bitton was born in 1955 in Rabat to a Jewish-Moroccan family. Her father was a Jewish jeweller who immigrated with his family to Israel in 1966. The filmmaker who have been nominated to win the César Award, the Marseille Festival of Documentary Fild Award and the Sudanese Film Festival, served in the Israeli Defense Forces. According to several sources, Bitton considers herself as an «Arab Jew». After living in Israel, she settled down in France where she graduated from the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques in 1981. Earlier this month, Noam Vanzana, an Israeli singer of Moroccan descent who has been invited to perform at the 18th edition of Tanjazz festival, was met at her arrival in Tangier by riots. According to Israel National News, the singer was called a «child killer», in a video where a number of anti-Israel activists set fire to the Israeli flag. Vanzana was summoned by Tanjazz organizes to sing on the 15th of September alongside a Dutch-Moroccan artist named Teema. The presence of Vanzan was highly criticized by the BDS movement as she has served at the Israeli Defense Forces.
