Israeli-Palestinian film on West Bank occupation branded 'antisemitic' by Berlin city portal
Berlin's official online portal has faced backlash for claiming the Israeli-Palestinian film No Other Land about Israel's takeover in the occupied West Bank contained "antisemitic tendencies".
The film, directed by Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and Palestinian journalist Basel Adra, won the Documentary Film Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in February.
However, it has been criticised by pro-Israel commentators for its unflinching portrayal of army and settler violence against Palestinians and has yet to find a distributor in the US.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Abraham said he felt "unsafe and unwelcome in Berlin" because of the designation.
"It pains me to see how, after murdering most of my family in the Holocaust, you empty the word antisemitism of meaning to silence critics of Israel's occupation in the West Bank (the topic of our film) and legitimize violence against Palestinian," he wrote.
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The Berlin portal's commentary was criticised in a number of quarters, including by German ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert.
"You can argue over the politics of it. But 'anti-Semitic tendencies'? The accusation is plain wrong," he wrote on social media.
The text on the site was later changed, along with an admission that the original description had been "incorrect and inadmissible".
Since the beginning of the war on Gaza in October 2023, the German government has presided over a wide-ranging crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism in the country.
Last week, the ruling coalition agreed on a new antisemitism resolution after months of debate on the issue.
Opponents of the resolution have criticised it for adopting the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism - which conflates criticism of Israel’s government with antisemitism - and proposing withholding of state funds for artistic and scientific endeavours from those who take part in boycotts of Israel.
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