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.”
Germany is doing this all very consciously, while knowing clearly what the outcome is.
In fact Germany claims one of its official reasons for existence is the defence of the Israeli state and its supposed right to exist. It’s considered anti-semitic and anti-German to criticize this position or to even express sympathy for the colonized peoples of Palestine. Allegiance to this official position may be required for naturalized citizens moving forward.
Meanwhile actual anti-semitism (violence against Jews, vandalization of Jewish property and symbols) goes on uncommented.