[ April 30, 2024 ]
Feels like the 1936 Munich Olympics.
Fury as Berlin International Film Festival Awards Ceremony Descends Into Anti-Israel Rhetoric
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by Ben Cohen, Algemeiner, February 26, 2024:Film directors Ben Russell (far left) and Servan Decle (far right) wearing Palestinian keffiyeh scarves at the Berlinale film festival. Photo: Reuters/Monika Skolimowska
Story continues below advertisementGerman politicians and Israel’s Ambassador in Berlin expressed disgust on Monday after the Berlinale annual film festival ended over the weekend with a series of speeches by film directors denouncing alleged Israeli “apartheid” as well as the ongoing “genocide” in Gaza at an awards ceremony.
One filmmaker — the American director Ben Russell, whose documentary “Direct Action” was shown at the festival — sparked particular ire when he took to the stage wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf.
“Of course we also stand for life here and we stand against genocide and for a cease-fire in solidarity with all our comrades,” Russell declared to applause and cheers from the audience.
Another American director, Eliza Hittman, invoked her Jewish identity to condemn Israel’s defensive war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel that claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people.
“As a Jewish filmmaker who won the Silver Bear in 2020, it is important for me to be here,” Hittman said. “There is no just war, and the more people try to convince themselves there’s a just war, the more they commit a grotesque act of self-deception.”
Separately, Israeli director Yuval Abraham — who co-directed the film “No Other Land” with his Palestinian colleague Basel Adra — called for a “political solution to end the occupation.”
Said Abraham: “I’m Israeli, Basel is Palestinian. In two days, we return to a land where we aren’t equal. I’m living under civilian law, and Basel lives under military law. We live 30 minutes from one another, but I have voting rights. Basel does not have voting rights.” He added: “This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality has to end. We need to call for a ceasefire.”
On Monday, festival organizers said it planned to file criminal charges against a group of hackers whom they claim broke into their Instagram account to spread pro-Palestinian messages.
One post declared, “Genocide is Genocide. We are all complicit,” while another stated: “From our unresolved Nazi past to our genocidal present — we have always been on the wrong side of history. But it’s not too late to change our future.”
Responding to the scenes at the festival, Israel’s Ambassador in Germany, Ron Prosor, declared in a post on X/Twitter that the lessons from the 2022 Documenta art festival, where a series of antisemitic artworks were on display, had not been absorbed.
“Once again, the German cultural scene showcases its bias by rolling out the red carpet exclusively for artists who promote the delegitimization of Israel,” Prosor wrote.
In a separate statement, the Central Council of German Jews expressed regret that the festival — one of the most prestigious international events in the film world alongside the Venice and Cannes film festivals — was being “misused for ideological agitation against Israel and Jews.
“Hatred against Israel and Jews at German cultural events has become a terrifying regularity,” the council said.
German politicians who condemned the festival included Berlin’s Mayor Kai Wegner, who stated that “what happened yesterday at the Berlinale was an unacceptable relativization. There is no place for antisemitism in Berlin, and that also applies to the arts.” Meanwhile, the German capital’s minister for culture, Joe Chialo, said that the awards ceremony at the festival was “characterized by self-righteous anti-Israeli propaganda.”
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22 Comments2 months agoHit man for Hittman. I am so sick of radical Marxists who pose as Jews dictating their delusional world views. Stop telling Israel how to fight for their lives.
You are a bunch of cowardly hypocrites doing Islam’s bidding.
2 months agoReply to Eric Arthur BlairI hate to tell you this, but they are not Marxists, they are Rooseveltists. That’s right, Rooseveltists. You see, though Marx was not a good person, he plagirized a book authored by a cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and published it in 1841 while he was in the New York Assembly. That same year John Humphrey Noyes founded a communist commune in Oneida, NY and mandated complex marriage for the commune members. He had been kicked out of New England by the Puritans. Guess why. He called himself a BIBLE COMMUNIST. Hmm. When did Marx publish his manifesto??
If you doubt what I am saying consider what Clinton Roosevelt advocated. Do was see a decline in the American society that parallels what he advocated? It’s in my opinion, all because of Democratic Party polices since Andrew Jackson founded the party. They began with African slaves, moved on to native Americans, but have been moving on the Caucasian. The end game was predicted by the Fabian Socialists HG Wells and Aldous Huxley. Wells’ book The Time Machine describes well what the future will be and so does Huxley’s Brave New World.
Unless the Jewish Messiah returns there will be no Americans, only Eloi. When Morlocks like Bill Gates and Nancy Pelosi are hungry they will not be eating bugs.They will be eating Eloi.2 months agoI am appalled by sappy left wing Jews i.e. useful idiots. They will be eaten alive by the hate and stupidity that surrounds them. Will these morons even care? Did they even notice Oct 7, 2023? Probably not.
2 months agoReply to LwsAlas, alas.
There’s nothing new here.
Barenboim.
Have you heard of such a being ?
All his life he fought for the rights of the Arab occupiers.
And after October 7, he continues to do the same thing.2 months agoReply to Martin1818Israelis must not read the Tankkh and have forgotten that Palestinians were known
as Philistines until the Romans came. King David would not forget!2 months agoReply to LwsIf these kapos think cheerleading for savages will get them on a later train car, they will, if history is any predictor, be grievously disappointed.
2 months agoReply to LwsMuch like many Americans, who attend church and think that will get them into Heaven, they think being a child of Abraham will get them into the Messiah’s Kingdom. I look at what He said when He first came. Once He said:
“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will
of my Father which is in heaven.”“Yeshua said “But don’t think that it is I who will be your accuser before the Father.
Do you know who will accuse you? Moshe, the very one you counted on!
For if you really believed Moshe, you would believe me; because it was about me that he wrote.”When I see rainbow flags flying over synagogues I think of Sodom and Gomorrah. Do these people not read the Tankh? And Gentiles claim belief in Yeshua, but do they not read both the New and Old Testaments?
2 months ago1936 indeed … we are descending into Nastie madness …
… and we’ve gone into free fall …
someone needs to pull the ripcord soon …
2 months agoReply to danknightIsraelis have forgotten what their grand parents suffered and the same is true for the American people though they did not suffer yet. Half the American people are members of a religious cult though many claim to be Christians.
The cult? Democratic Party. Yes, the Democratic Party where the cult member worship at the temple of Baal and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was a cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was the actual author of the Communist Manifesto, not Karl Marx, though Marx embraced the goals. FDR began implementing the Goals.
His New Deal was from Clinton Roosevelt’s book.
The American people will be living as the Jewish people did for 400 years under the Egyptians soon if they do not return to the values of the American Founders, or if the Messiah does not return soon.2 months agoOnly leftists could accuse a nation fighting for its life against its own genocide of, wait for it…, genocide
Leftism truly is a mental disease
2 months agoUnfortunately little has changed in Germany since the 1930-1945 era. Scratch a German lightly and the underlying anti-Sematism is soon revealed.
2 months agoIn the great Mel Brooks film, The Producers, Zero says they should kill the actors. Wilder responds you can’t – they’re people. Bialy replies. “Oh, yeah? Did you ever eat with one?” In all seriousness, these vapid and self absorbed know-nothings should read Ibrahim’s Defenders of the West. Under Islamic sharia, they and their lifestyle would be destroyed.
2 months agoFashionista fascists with their keffiyeh scarves and transparent clothes. How about speaking up for the hostages?
2 months agoI keep hearing about the “genocide” in Gaza by Israel, but NOBODY seems to see that THAT is what islam wants for Israel!
2 months agoReply to jbavieraMake note that what did the Philistines plan for when King David was alive? The name may have been changed by the Romans, but the plan has never changed. But they are not stopping at Israel. Read the Explanatory Memorandum that was discovered by the American FBI in a Raid in America. All those liberal American women, I hope they enjoy the hijab or being sex slaves.
2 months agoRussell and Hittman are Soros’ Nazi Jews.
2 months agoReply to Stephen HonigGyorgy Schwartz loves to play the Antisemitism game, but as a Nazi collaborator he has more in common with pagans than Jews. By the way, George Soros is Esperanto for George Soros. I wonder what he will do the day he has to face the Messiah?
2 months agoUseful idiots are still available in Hollywood and around. Most depressing is Jews advocating the attack on Israel. In the end they will be swallowed up by wokers and lefties.
2 months agoReply to KesselmanKarl Marx rejected the G*d of Israel so I’m not surprised that modern Jews do. It suggests that Rabbis are no preaching the full Council of the Tankh much like the Christian Churches. There are reports that Pope Francis is going to bless homosexual marriages. The Historian William Federer has said that in 6,000 years of recorded history homosexual marriages were never blessed. Do we see what an American FBI agent predicted in his 1958 book The Naked Communist coming to pass? In that book he had a list he called Goals of the Communists.
In his 45 point list he included Goal #26:
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural and healthy.”
It looks like his Goal #40 is part of Clinton Roosevelt’s Goals, published in 1841:
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.2 months agoI would like to hear the politicians who condemned the moronic antisemitism also announce that future government funding for the artists and festivals involved would be terminated. Otherwise they are just a pack of hypocrites. Disgusting!
2 months agoWhere do they come up with idea of ” Israeli genocide ” ? when the Israeli military goes well out of their way and does EVERYTHING they can to try to protect – supposedly – non combatant palestinians? Again they are just useful idiots –
D
D
