By Abayomi Azikiwe
Hundreds of cultural workers, public intellectuals and political activists have signed a petition expressing their strong opposition to the holding of an Israeli film festival in the capital of the Republic of Ghana in West Africa.
The mobilization of public opinion and subsequent demonstrations outside the Silver Cinema in Accra was aimed at exposing the efforts of the Israeli state to counter the international movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people who have been under siege for decades.
Since October 7, 2023, approximately 65,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) under the false premise of releasing hostages and eliminating the Hamas resistance movement. Over the past two years public opinion around the world has radically shifted in favor of the ending of the national oppression, displacement and systematic mass murder of the Palestinians while calling for the total liberation from zionist occupation.
Tel Aviv continues their attempts to work around the people’s sanctions which have been imposed around the world in solidarity with the Palestinians. On a continental level, the African Union (AU), made up of 55 member-states based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has banned any form of observer status for the zionist state.
Israel and its backers in the United States and Western Europe have categorically dismissed the claims of genocide against the Palestinians while continuing to supply offensive arms, intelligence support and diplomatic cover for the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Demonstrations and other forms of protests have occurred on university campuses and in municipalities throughout North America, Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific. In late 2023, the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of South Africa filed a legal claim against the State of Israel for violating the Genocide Convention of 1948 in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The following year, the ICJ ruled that the charges of genocide against Tel Aviv were plausible. Yet, the White House under former President Joe Biden dismissed the South African lawsuit as having “no merit.” Consequently, the Israeli regime has continued its brutal war against the Palestinians and others throughout the region in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran and Qatar.
Under the current presidency of Donald Trump, the unconditional support for genocide continues through the denial of the fundamental human rights of the Palestinians and the recent bombings in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Washington then gave the go ahead for the Israeli air strikes in Doha, Qatar targeting the leadership of Hamas which was discussing a proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza presented by the Trump administration. Although the leadership of Hamas survived, at least five of their comrades were killed in the bombings as well as a Qatari security guard working in the building.
Within Ghana itself, based upon its history of solidarity with liberation movements around the world during the transitional phase, independence and founding of the First Republic under the leadership Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People’s Party (CPP), numerous liberation movements were given political and material support to continue their struggle against colonialism and imperialism. Nkrumah was a close ally of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nassar, then at the forefront of the struggle against zionism and colonialism.
Ghanaian Activists Continue the Solidarity Movement Against Injustice
More than 500 people signed a petition in early September demanding the cancellation of the planned Israeli Film Festival which took place at the Silver Cinema beginning on September 16. The signatories to the petition represented a broad-based coalition of social justice organizations and public intellectuals.
The statement issued by these activists read in part:
“We the under-signed organizations and individuals condemn Silverbird Cinema for hosting an ‘Israeli Film Festival’ on 16–20 September 2025, co-organized with the Zionist state. Any platform for apartheid, genocide, and the mass killing of Palestinian civilians is complicity in crimes against humanity. Silverbird must understand the legal, social and political weight of this decision, as the ICC and ICJ processes expand worldwide. Across Africa, people are proud to stand against Israel’s racist, apartheid regime, and global solidarity with Palestine is stronger than ever. It is breathtaking hypocrisy that Silverbird, having just screened the anti-apartheid film Comrade Tambo’s London Recruits on 7 September, now seeks to celebrate the ‘culture’ of today’s worst apartheid state. We demand Silverbird cancel this festival immediately and pledge never again to platform perpetrators of apartheid and genocide. We also call out the complicity of sponsors—Kempinski Hotel, SAF (STL), Rolider, EON, Sienna Services, UniMac, and others—whose names are now tied to bloodshed. History will not forget.”
Some of the individuals and organizations which signed on to the petition include: Kwesi Pratt, Jr.; Ghanaians Against Genocide; Justice and Freedom 4 Palestine; Legon Palestine Solidarity Activists; All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP); Economic Fighters League (EFL); Socialist Students and Workers Solidarity Network; Rastafari Council; African Institute of Strategic Studies (AISS); Pan-African Heritage Youth Movement; among many others.
As pressure mounted against the event, the Kempinski Hotel in Accra emphatically denied that it was a co-sponsor of the film festival. Hotel management through a public statement demanded that their name be removed from all publicity associated with the event.
When the festival opened Ghanaian activists set up a picket line outside the film theater to express their abhorrence for the event. An article published by myjoyonline.com, said of the situation in Accra:
“The ongoing Israeli Film Festival in Ghana has come under fire, with Ernesto Yeboah, the Commander-in-Chief of the Economic Fighters League (EFL), branding the event as a ‘bloody Israeli propaganda’ festival’ aimed at ‘brainwashing’ the public. Mr. Yeboah, a key figure in Ghana’s protest movements, including #FixTheCountry and the anti-corruption ‘Drop That Chamber’ campaign, stated that he attempted to attend the festival to see what was being shown. He claimed he was denied entry, an action he described as an act of cowardice on the part of the organizers.”
This sentiment was pervasive among the public in Ghana. The people of the country have experienced neo-colonial domination since the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-coordinated overthrow of the First Republic and President Kwame Nkrumah in February 1966. Since 1966, Ghana has undergone several right-wing military coups and a succession of governments which have failed to recapture the revolutionary spirit of the period between 1951-1966.
The same above-quoted report, myjoyonline.com emphasized:
“Mr. Yeboah also criticized the content of the film, which he labelled as ‘psychological warfare’. He described the plot as a series of distortions where a person is killed, the blame is initially pinned on a ‘Holocaust offender’, and then, in a ‘bizarre twist’, the culprit ‘magically becomes Hamas’. He concluded that the film was nothing but ‘lies, distortion, and dehumanization packaged neatly on Silverbird’s screens.’ The Israeli embassy’s website frames the event as a cultural exchange and a symbol of deepening Ghana-Israel relations, showcasing films that reflect Israel’s ‘vibrant, opinionated and innovative’ culture.”
These developments in Ghana are a reflection of the deep sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian people. Despite the fact that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government of President John Mahama would allow such an event to occur, the mass organizations, artists and intellectuals continue to uphold the anti-imperialist traditions of the country.
Ghana Once Again Generates Controversy Over its Relations with the West and Its Allies
For the second time in less than a month, the Mahama administration has been criticized for its relationship with the United States and its surrogate outpost in Occupied Palestine. At the beginning of September, a secret agreement to cooperate with illegal deportations of West African migrants from the U.S. was exposed in a lawsuit filed by human rights groups.
In yet another report by myjoyonline.com it notes the response of a leading politician related to the revelations surrounding the deal to accept migrants deported by the Trump administration. The article conveyed that:
“Special Aide to Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia (DMB), Akosua Manu, has raised sharp concerns over Ghana’s agreement to host deportees from the United States without parliamentary ratification. In a post on her social media pages on Thursday, September 18, the NPP’s 2024 parliamentary candidate for Adentan criticized the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, for disregarding constitutional requirements. She also questioned the justifications he offered during a recent interview on Channel One TV. ‘I watched in utter disbelief a clip from an interview granted by our Foreign Minister on Channel One TV,’ she said.”
Such incidents reveal the degree to which the U.S. is willing to go in reinforcing its neo-colonial dominance over contemporary African states. Undoubtedly, it will take the organization and mobilization of the masses to reverse this political trajectory to bring about the renaissance of Pan-Africanism and socialism across the continent.
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