German newspapers also highlighted a speech on Saturday by Ben Russell, an American filmmaker who jointly won the award for best experimental film. He appeared on stage wearing a kaffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian headscarf, and denounced a “genocide” in Gaza. In an interview, Russell said the media reaction “has been surprising in its intensity and stunning in its one-sidedness.”
A backlash was also underway in Israel, Abraham said. He delayed his flight back to Jerusalem, he added, because he had received more than 100 death threats on social media and feared for his safety.
Abraham said he did not understand why German and Israeli media were calling his comments anti-Semitic. On stage, he called for the end of “apartheid” between Israeli and Palestinian citizens, but he justified the use of this term by asserting that Israelis and Palestinians do not have the same rights, in particular that of vote or travel freely.
“If everything is anti-Semitic, the word loses its meaning,” Abraham said.
Because of the Holocaust, German officials have long felt a special responsibility towards Israel. In 2019, lawmakers passed a resolution urging local governments to refuse to fund any group or person that “actively supports” a boycott of Israel, which they officially called anti-Semitic.
Since then, arts administrators have closed museum exhibitions, concerts and lectures, or removed artists from programs if they signed open letters supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, known as BDS.
Yet in the more polarized atmosphere following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks and Israeli military operations in Gaza, many artists have complained that the criteria for closing exhibitions and events has widened. , so that they now include artists accusing Israel of war crimes, or genocide.