Press TV – February 13, 2014
Pro-Israel lobbies in Germany have reacted angrily to a decision by the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) to honor a director who supports boycotting the Israeli regime.
The 64th annual film festival is set to grant on Thursday an honorary Golden Bear to Ken Loach, the British film director critical of Tel Aviv’s policies.
In a statement on the festival’s website, Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick said he admires Loach for his “profound interest in people and their individual fates, as well as his critical commitment to society.”
However, German pro-Israel groups expressed anger at the decision.
Deidre Berger, head of the Berlin office of the American Jewish Committees (AJL), claimed that Loach “uses his prominence to call for a cultural boycott of Israel.”
She also said it was a “disgrace” for the festival to pander to the film director distinguished through what she described as “bigotry.”
The British director of such films as, My Name is Joe, and, Bread and Roses, has repeatedly called for the boycott of Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.
In a recent interview with the German daily Der Tagesspiegel, Loach said Israel had broken international laws, lied to the world about its nuclear weapons, confiscated lands from Palestinians, and thrown Palestinian children in prison.
Loach also said the boycott of Tel Aviv is the only way to accomplish what neither the United Nations nor the United States did to force Israel to return the occupied Palestinian lands to their true owners.
Meanwhile, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against the Israeli regime is gaining momentum all across the globe.