At Berlin Film Festival, Antisemitism Was in the Air

The awards ceremony at the Berlin Film Festival on February 20 was less about film and more about denouncing Israel for its “genocide” in Gaza. An unconscionable number of Arab filmmakers won prizes, and they were all determined, as part of their acceptance speeches, to denounce the Jewish state for a crime it did not commit. More on the deplorable spectacle can be found here: “German Minister Walks Out After Berlinale Winner Accuses Germany of Aiding Gaza ‘Genocide’ in Acceptance Speech,” by Shiryn Ghermezian, Algemeiner, February 20, 2026:

German Minister of Environment Carsten Schneider walked out of the awards ceremony at the 76th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) on Saturday after a Palestinian-Syrian filmmaker accused Germany of being “partners in the genocide in Gaza by Israel” during his acceptance speech.

Schneider left the room following the remarks made by Abdallah Al-Khatib, whose film “Chronicles From the Siege” won the Berlinale’s best first feature award in the Perspectives section. “The Federal Minister considers these statements unacceptable and therefore left the event during the speech,” a spokesperson for Schneider said on Sunday, as cited by several media outlets. The minster was the only representative of the German government to attend the awards ceremony, a spokesman for his ministry told the German Press Agency.

Al-Khatib, who lives in Germany and wrote and directed “Chronicles From the Siege,” delivered his acceptance speech on stage with a keffiyeh draped on his shoulder.

“Some people told me, maybe you have to be careful before you say what I want to say now, because you are a refugee in Germany, and there are so many red lines. But I don’t care. I care about my people, about Palestine,” he said. “So, I will say my final word to the German government. You are partners in the genocide in Gaza by Israel. I believe you are intelligent enough to recognize this truth, but you choose to not care.” The filmmaker also held a Palestinian flag on stage and ended his speech with a call for a “free Palestine from now to the end of the world.”…

Al-Khatib calls for a “free Palestine,” by which he means “from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free.” He did not call for “two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.” He wants to see Israel disappear, to be replaced by a 23rd Arab state. His charge of “genocide” is preposterous, but all of the Arab winners at the Berlinale repeated it without any of them presenting any evidence to support that claim.

Indian writer Arundhati Roy pulled out of the festival because the president of its jury, Wim Wenders, had said that filmmakers should stay out of politics. She had been hoping to denounce Israel for — you guessed it — “genocide.” She needn’t have worried. The charge of “genocide” was very much present at the Berlinale. Even before the Berlinale took place, more than one hundred members of the film industry wrote a letter urging that the Berlinale condemn Israel: “We call on the Berlinale to fulfill its moral duty and clearly state its opposition to Israel’s genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against Palestinians.” And no one at the Berlinale spoke up for Israel by explaining that the essential element of “genocide” — “intent” — had not been proven.

Far from “intending” to kill civilians in Gaza, the IDF makes tremendous efforts to avoid such killings. To this end, it has dropped millions of leaflets, sent millions of text messages, made millions of robocalls, all to warn civilians away from buildings about to be targeted. West Point Professor John Spencer, an expert on urban warfare, has studied the war in Gaza and has concluded that “Israel has done more and implemented more measures to prevent civilian harm than any military in the history of urban warfare.” Israel tries to minimize civilian casualties; Hamas tries, by placing its men and weapons in civilian buildings, including schools, mosques, hospitals, and apartment buildings, to maximize them, in order to make the IDF look bad.

One more metric — the ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths — also needs to be understood. According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 73,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began. Of that number, the IDF believes 25,000 were Hamas terrorists. Of the 48,000 remaining, based on years of record-keeping, about 800 people die each month in Gaza from non-combat-related causes — diseases and accidents. That means that in the 28 months of war, 22,400 Gazans have died from those causes. In addition, it is estimated that at least 2,000 Gazans have died as a result of the misfiring of missiles launched by Hamas and Islamic Jihad at Israel, that instead fell short, and landed inside the Strip where some of them killed Gazans.

Let’s do the math. 73,000 total deaths minus 25,000 Hamas terrorists equals 48,000. 48,000 minus 22,400 non-combat-related deaths equals 25,600. 25,600 minus 2,000 “friendly fire” deaths equals 23,600 civilians in Gaza died as a result of Israeli fire. The UN believes that in all the wars fought since 1945, the civilian-to-combatant ratio has on average been 9 to 1. In Afghanistan, the Americans managed to bring that ration down to 4 to 1; in Iraq, the Americans brought it down to 3:1. But in Gaza, the ration has been 23,600 to 25,000, or less than 1:1. In the annals of modern warfare, this is an unheard-of number. But the IDF managed to attain it. Yet here we have people — Arab prizewinners, of whom there are an inordinate number — who come up to the podium to receive their recognition at the Berlinale but turn their speech into a political diatribe that accuses Israel of being guilty of “genocide.” Wim Wenders was right: filmmakers should stay out of politics, especially politics of the antisemitic lynch-mob variety that was on such vivid display at the latest Berlinale.