Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra are the co-directors of the film ‘No Other Land’ [Getty]
Germany’s official Berlin city portal has faced backlash after describing an Israeli-Palestinian film, co-directed by Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, as having “antisemitic tendencies”.
The controversial description of the film ‘No Other Land’, which was co-directed with Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra and examines Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank, prompted Abraham to threaten legal action.
In a post on X Abraham said: “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 Palestinians.”
“I feel unsafe and unwelcome in Berlin of 2024 as a left-wing Israeli and will take legal action,” he added.
Shortly after Abraham’s post, the site removed the description, saying on the film page the description was “incorrect and inadmissible” and had been removed.
‘No Other Land’, which tells the story of the displacement of Palestinians in villages in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers, won the Berlinale Documentary Award at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival.
During their acceptance speeches, Adra speech highlighted Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza and urged Germany to cease arms exports to Tel Aviv, while Abraham labelled Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories as “apartheid”.
Abraham said he had received death threats and that a right-wing mob came to his home to search for him over his speech.
Germany, under a staunchly pro-Israel government, has been the centre of a crackdown on pro-Palestinian solidarity activism, which protests being shutdown by the police and cultural events being cancelled.
Most recently Palestinian playwright and artistic director of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin Ahmed Tobasi had his play ‘And Here I Am’ cancelled at the Euro-scene theatre following pressure from German group Artists against Antisemitism.
