"Our film “No Other Land” on occupied Masafer Yatta’s brutal expulsion won best documentary in Berlinale. Israel’s channel 11 aired this 30 second segment from my speech, insanely called it “anti semitic” - and I’ve been receiving death threats since. I stand behind every word." pic.twitter.com/2burPfZeKO

• Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) February 25, 2024

#politics #art #film #festival #berlinale #antisemitism #censorship #mccarthyism #strikegermany

Mc Carthyism - Made in Germany:

Berlinale: Filmmakers say what the rest of the world is saying

At the Berlinale film festival, Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers called for equality and peace. German politicians want to ban such hateful talk (Nathaniel Flakin)

The Berlinale film festival ended on Saturday evening with a gala, but if you read the German press, it was actually a »scandal«. The speeches were »alarming«, »shameful«, and »frightening«, full of »Israel hatred« and »antisemitism«. What had happened?

Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra, an Israeli and a Palestinian, won an award for their documentary film »No Other Land«. Abraham spoke for just 36 seconds:
»In two days, we will go back to a land where we are not equal. I am living under a civilian law, and Basel is under military law. We live 30 minutes from one another, but I have voting rights, and Basel is not having voting rights. I am free to move where I want in this land. Basel is, like millions of Palestinians, locked in the occupied West Bank. This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality, it has to end.«

His co-producer Adra took just 21 seconds: »I'm here celebrating the award, but also very hard for me to celebrate when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza. Masafer Yatta, my community, is being also razed by Israeli bulldozers. I ask one thing from Germany, as I am in Berlin here, to respect the UN calls and stop sending weapons to Israel.«

These are sober statements of liberal democratic principles. Who would dare to contradict? Should systematic inequality based on ethnicity (known in international law as »apartheid«) continue? Should Germany keep ignoring UN resolutions?

"Clear message at @berlinale ceremony by Basel Adra, co-producer of "No Other Land": "There are 10s of 1000s of my people being slaughtered...by #Israel in #Gaza. I ask 1 thing from #Germany...to respect the #UN calls and stop sending weapons to Israel" pic.twitter.com/7QUzMKujEh

• Prof. Hanna Kienzler 🧡 🇵🇸 (@HannaKienzler) February 25, 2024

An Israeli and a Palestinian stood together against the militaristic logic of both Likud and Hamas. It's an inspiring message – yet I have not found a single German publication that has quoted them in full.

Rather than engaging in debate, German politicians are demanding censorship. Olaf Scholz and his top cultural bureaucrat Claudia Roth each called the speeches »shockingly one-sided«. Justice minister Marco Buschmann called for »criminal consequences«. Even Anne Helm of the Left Party declared that »a line has been crossed«.

Berlin's mayor Kai Wegner called this an »unacceptable relativization« and declared that »there is no space for antisemitism in Berlin, and that also applies to the art scene.« This is the same Wegner who just two weeks ago said the AfD will be included in future editions of the Berlinale. The politicians of the in some federal states officially far right party had been disinvited following protests, but the mayor is demanding »equal treatment« for them. In other words, for Wegner, literal far right politicians are OK, but critical Israelis are not welcome.

Over the years, Berlinale has hosted some spectacular Israeli documentaries. Good films need to be critical of the reality they are trying to portray. If all criticism of Israel is rejected as antisemitic, then no one will dare to invite Israeli directors for fear they might say something negative about their government. What will be left at Berlinale? Just Tatort episodes and Netanyahu campaign ads?

German politicians are claiming this will cause »damage to the Berlinale«. The opposite is the case: their demands for extreme censorship are a mortal threat to Berlin's art scene. Do they even realize how far outside the global mainstream they are? In calling for a ceasefire, Saturday's prizewinners were saying what the whole world except for Germany is saying – even Joe Biden has been mumbling about it.

Once again, we see how this virulent solidarity with Israel comes at the expense of Jewish life in Germany. What do we call this ferocious desire to silence Jews who don't comply with the German Staatsräson? Last week, the Israeli director Udi Aloni said: »It seems like there is a new form of antisemitism in Germany, that no one calls antisemitism: the censorship of progressive intellectual Jewish voices.« He admitted that he was afraid to quote Walter Benjamin or Franz Rosenzweig in this country »because I might get canceled«.

It seems German politicians don't want us to hear these speeches. They cannot defend the reality – so they try to avoid discussions about it. We must hear Israelis and Palestinians when they stand together to call for equality and peace.
- https://www.nd-aktuell.de/artikel/1180340.antisemitism-berlinale-filmmakers-say-what-the-rest-of-the-world-is-saying.html

"Are They 'Hamas'?" 12,300 Children Killed by Israeli Forces in Gaza

Gruesome new data shows that kids make up around 43% of the death toll from Israel's assault on the #Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces have killed more than 12,300 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in just over four months, a staggering toll that’s likely to grow as the Netanyahu government ramps up its assault on and prepares to invade the overcrowded city of Rafah.

New figures that Gaza health authorities provided to The Associated Press show that children make up roughly 43% of the total death toll in the Palestinian enclave since October 7. Women and children combined account for three-quarters of the death toll, according to the new data.

“Are they ‘Hamas’?” Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, asked in response to the numbers, referring to Israel’s claim that it is targeting militants despite the massive and growing body of evidence to the contrary.

An Amnesty International report released Monday examining four recent Israeli airstrikes on Rafah. Amnesty said that “in all four attacks,” it did not find “any indication that the residential buildings hit could be considered legitimate military objectives or that people in the buildings were military targets.”

https://alaska-native-news.com/are-they-hamas-12300-children-killed-by-israeli-forces-in-gaza/72504/
#gaza #palestine #children #hamas #Genocide #WarCrime #Politics #StopTheWar #SaveGaza #StopIsrael #SaveRafah #PeaceNow #CeaseFireNow

Here's Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic) on the *permanence* of wealth disparity in the USA...
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The factual: America is not a bootstrap-friendly land. If you have money in America, chances very good are you inherited it.

American wealth is now dynastic, perpetuating itself and growing thanks to a whole Versailles' worth of courtiers: money managers, lawyers, and overpaid babysitters who can keep even the most Habsburg-jawed nepobaby in turnip-sized million-dollar watches and performance automobiles and organ replacements for their whole, interminable lives.

But it's not just that the American rich stay rich – it's that the American poor stay poor. America is a world-trailing loser in the international social mobility league-table. If you change classes in America, chances are you're a middle class person becoming poor, thanks to medical costs or another of the American debt-traps; or you're a poor person who is becoming a homeless person thanks to America's world-beating eviction mills.

As a factual matter, America just isn't the land of bootstraps; it's a land of hereditary aristocrats. Sustaining the American narrative of meritocracy requires a whole culture industry, novels and later movies that constitute a kind of state religion for Americans – and like all religious tales, the American faith tradition is riddled with gaps and contradictions.
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FULL ESSAY -- https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/10/declaration-of-interdependence/

#Politics #USA #Capitalism #Inequality