An Israeli film-maker who won one of the top prizes at the Berlin film festival has said German officials’ description of the awards ceremony as “antisemitic” has led to death threats and the physical intimidation of family members, causing him to hold off plans to return to Israel.
Yuval Abraham, 29, was on Saturday awarded the Berlinale’s best documentary award for No Other Land, which charts the eradication of Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta in the West Bank.
Abraham’s acceptance speech, in which he decried a “situation of apartheid” and called for a ceasefire in Gaza, was one of several moments during the closing ceremony in which film-makers expressed solidarity with Palestine. It sparked an outcry in German media the following day, with several politicians alleging the speeches had been “antisemitic”.
“To stand on German soil as the son of Holocaust survivors and call for a ceasefire – and to then be labelled as antisemitic is not only outrageous, it is also literally putting Jewish lives in danger,” Abraham told the Guardian.
“I don’t know what Germany is trying to do with us,” he added. “If this is Germany’s way of dealing with its guilt over the Holocaust, they are emptying it of all meaning.”
Yet another case of anyone speaking out against Israel being labeled antisemitic.
Well, this one takes it one lever higher: calling an Israeli jew, descendent of holocaust survivors, “antisemite” just because he disagrees with the actions of his government …
I don’t know how that is in other parts of the world but this is quite a normal occurrence in Germany nowadays. A lot of Israeli Jews living in Germany have been labeled by white Germans as antisemitic for criticising the occupation.
To be fair he opposes killing thousands of children and starving 2.4 million people to death, so that does make him antisemitic.
Back in my days “antisemitic” meant hating all jews, not merely opposing Israel’s government. So no, he’s not antisemitic.
Lay off the booze.