A senior Cabinet minister in Germany who was the main government representative at the Berlin International Film Festival, aka the Berlinale, on Sunday, left the event in protest after a director accused Israel of perpetrating genocide.
Carsten Schneider, the federal minister for the environment, nature conservation, climate protection and nuclear safety, represents the center-left Social Democratic Party. He left the Berlinale gala event during a speech by Syrian filmmaker Abdallah Alkhatib, who identifies as a Palestinian, the dpa news agency reported.
The incident underlined taboos in Germany on harsh criticism of Israel. In many European countries, libelous allegations against Israel are tolerated, especially in artistic, liberal-learning circles. But in Germany, Alkhatib’s use of the awards ceremony to lambaste Israel was greeted with boos and a walkout, alongside cheers from some in the audience, according to the report.
German politicians, including those on the left, have endorsed the country’s longstanding special relationship with the Jewish state as a way to atone for the Nazi-led destruction of European Jewry in the 1940s.
A spokesperson for Schneider called the allegations “unacceptable,” dpa reported.
Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner, from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union, told the Bild newspaper that “those who presented themselves [at the gala] as pro-Palestinian activists were not concerned with human rights. Their sole aim was hatred of Israel.”
Wegner said that Tricia Tuttle, the chief administrator at the Berlinale film festival, and Wim Wenders, president of the awards jury, “had done everything possible to guide the film festival through the tense global political situation with sensitivity, openness and a willingness to engage in dialogue.”
Alkhatib won the festival’s Perspectives Award for a film titled “Chronicles From the Siege” about life in a war-torn city in the Middle East. The film is said to have been inspired by the Syrian civil war.
“People have told me to be careful …, but I don’t care,” Alkhatib said in his acceptance speech. “You are partners in the genocide of Gaza by Israel, but you choose not to care. Free Palestine from now until the end of the world.”
