What film festivals, Cannes is an international festival, I'm pretty sure international festivals in the US allow Israeli films lmao.

Creative Europe is not some kind of competition or event like Eurovision (which for some reason people still believe it has something to do with the EU), it's a funding program and a number of neighbour countries outside the EU also participate. Israel didn't want to participate some years ago because money would be excluded from settlements, they could have before too. But, like, last time I checked, Israel is also part of American international funding programs, so I don't understand what the point is?

I've seen this take before and it's very weird, it doesn't seem like people really understand how this stuff works.