@middleeastmatters: “This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality, it has to end.” Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist and filmmaker, delivered a powerful acceptance speech at the 74th Berlin Film Festival on Saturday describing the inequality between the lives he and Palestinian co-director Basel Adra have under Israeli occupation. 🗣️ He called for a ceasefire and an end to the Israeli apartheid and occupation. Abraham says he has received death threats after an Israeli news channel described his speech as “antisemitic.” Abraham and Adra accepted the award for Best Documentary for their film “No Other Land” about Israel’s occupation and mass expulsion of Palestinians living in Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank. 🗣️ “It is very hard for me to celebrate when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza,” said Palestinian director Basel Adra during his speech. Abraham, who is Israeli himself, asked influential members of the audience to take action to demand a ceasefire. Instead, this is the reaction he received: Berlin’s mayor Kai Wegner attacked the speech, describing it as “intolerable relativization” and demanded the film festival to ensure “no such incidents should happen again” and added that “Berlin is firmly on Israel’s side.” The Berlinale Film Festival released a statement criticizing Abraham’s comments. “We understand the outrage that the statements made by some of the award winners were perceived as too one-sided and, in some cases, inappropriate,” the Berlinale festival said in a statement.

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Saturday 02 March 2024 16:26:46 GMT