Hind Rajab filmmaker refuses award over inclusion of Israel

Tunisian filmmaker of The Voice Of Hind Rajab, Kaouther Ben Hania, has refused to accept an award from Berlin’s so-called ‘Peace Gala’ over its ‘perfuming’ of Israel’s genocide. Ben Hania’s film won the award for “Most Valuable Film” at the ‘Cinema for Peace’ festival on 16 February.

The ceremony’s organisers invited warmongering former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and gave an award to former Israeli general Noam Tibon. Tibon is an advocate of military expansion in his “beloved state of Israel” and oversaw murders of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Ben Hania gave a speech after her award was announced, but said she was not taking the trophy because the event was providing “political cover” for genocide and acting as a “perfume sprayed over violence so power can feel refined”, “denigrating protesters” and “reframing mass civilian killing as self-defence”:

She continued:

The Israeli army killed Hind Rajab; killed her family; killed the two paramedics who came to save her, with the complicity of the world’s most powerful governments and institutions…I refuse to let their deaths become a backdrop for a polite speech about peace.

Hania said she would accept the award for The Voice of Hind Rajab “with joy” only when peace is “rooted in accountability for genocide.”

Featured image via the Canary