Fits Like a Glover. Actor’s Anti-Israel Screed Has Fernandez Bobbing and Weaving.
Even Vanessa Redgrave criticized the 2009 letter actor Danny Glover and others signed calling for a boycott of the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival for featuring the work of ten Israeli filmmakers. The screed called Israel “an apartheid regime” and claimed Tel Aviv was built on thousands of destroyed Palestinian villages.
Glover will campaign with New Haven Democratic mayoral hopeful Henry Fernandez on Monday, September 2nd. It’s Glover’s second appearance for Fernandez and comes on the wings of The New Haven Register’s enthusiastic endorsement of Fernandez. Glover is a sparkling bauble in an otherwise dreary campaign notable mostly for Fernandez’s determination and front-running Democratic state Senator Toni Harp’s blunders and evasions.
Fernandez has been unrelenting in his criticisms of Harp’s incredible explanations of her knowledge of her high-living family’s finances. The family real estate business is the state’s number one delinquent taxpayer. Fernandez has accused the Harps of being slumlords, and he seems to be right.
Fernandez’s hard driving candor, however, flows in one direction. I asked the Fernandez campaign if the candidate agrees that Glover’s characterization of Israel and Tel Aviv. Here is his evasive response:
“I have tremendous respect for Danny and have worked side by side with him on issues we both care deeply about including immigration, workers rights, and criminal justice. I am enormously grateful to have his support in campaigning for mayor of New Haven. I don’t know the details regarding the dozens of artists who signed the letter, but I do know that I have many friends and supporters who have lived in Israel and in the Palestinian territories and I wish for a time when the region will finally find peace.”
It’s a statement Fernandez would have mocked the befuddled Harp if she’d delivered it in response to a simple inquiry.
No word on whether Glover’s Lethal Weapon co-star Mel Gibson will be swerving into New Haven to give Fernandez a hand in the run-up to the September 10th contest.