The House of Representatives on Thursday ratified the agreement between the Republic of Cyprus and the government of Israel for the co-production of films.
With 25 votes in favour, 12 against, and three abstentions, the House approved a bill that had been postponed several times for discussion, after being examined by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on October 31 and November 15. These dates coincided with the ongoing Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Thus, the 25 MPs from DISY, DIKO, EDEK, DEPA, and ELAM, as well as independent Andreas Themistocleous, approved the agreement aimed at establishing a framework for cooperation between the two states to develop film production and encourage further cultural and technological ties, as stated by a representative of the Deputy Ministry of Culture.
AKEL voted against the agreement, while two MPs from the Green Party and independent MP Alexandra Attalidou abstained.
Meanwhile, this ratification pertains to an agreement signed on May 8, 2018, by the Minister of Education and approved by the Council of Ministers on July 25, 2018.
While the discussion and vote in the plenary session of the House were postponed due to the ongoing conflict and Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip following the October 7 attack, some were eager and could not wait any longer.
They could not wait for the massacre and the ongoing ethnic cleansing by the state of Israel, which caused the death of over 30,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of whom were civilians, to subside.
The film co-production with Israel outraged all those who discussed it for about two hours and tried to convince themselves or their voters that this agreement was unrelated to condemning the war in Gaza and being sensitive to the dead, the genocide, and the destruction imposed by the state of Israel.
However, all those who worked to ratify the agreement did not utter a word about the women and children being killed, the hospitals being bombed, the occupation, the ethnic cleansing and the massacre.
None. Not DISY, not the hard-core DIKO… not the former Lyssarides’ EDEK… not DEPA… not anti-occupation ELAM, and certainly not Themistocleous who even got annoyed with AKEL MPs’ interventions.
Now that the agreement has been ratified, tiny Cyprus can participate in Israel’s war propaganda, which has flooded cinema and television with series about the “evil Palestinians” who wish them harm.
The world will learn that this film, scripted by Mossad, is a Cyprus-Israel co-production because that’s what we needed in this place that has been fighting its own Turkish occupation for 50 years.
This is what our MPs wanted, to ratify an agreement from the previous government amid this turmoil, to send a message to the Israeli Embassy that they stand by it and that nothing has changed due to the invasion of Gaza.
“Kill more Palestinians,” they will write in their messages of submission, “and in our joint films, we will start and stop on October 7.” The slaves.
