The nominees for the Hasby for Best Own Goal are:
Max Blumenthal and David Sheen - ToiletGate
George Galloway - everything
Hamas - "Tkof Taaseh Biguim" (explanation)
Kat-Yang Stevens "colonialist whtsprmcst cisheteropatriarchy"
Max Blumenthal and David Sheen - ToiletGate
What is brilliant about ToiletGate isn't so much the specter of these two supposedly respected anti-Israel activists badgering and chasing a 60-something year old man into a toilet. It isn't the fact that they were banned from the Bundestag for their antics. It isn't even that the German Left party, which should be their natural allies, turned against them in disgust after this scene.
What is brilliant about it is that they are, even today, clueless as to how ridiculous they appeared to the world. Sheen and Blumenthal are still proud of how they acted! Their obliviousness to what jerks everyone sees them as is what makes this so great.
In the extended video of the incident, starting at 5:45 after the third time that the pair tried to confront Gysi, even Sheen and Blumenthal's sympathetic German Left hosts try to politely explain to them that this is not how one acts in Germany. Sheen just brushed that off, saying that this is how Israelis act, and if Germans love Israelis they should accept his rudeness. Sheen is then seen laughing afterwards saying that he wants to put this video on the Internet as if he is going to be the one who looks good.
Israel-haters like Blumenthal and Sheen live in a bubble where they think that their ever-more irrational positions and actions are being cheered by the world when in fact their fans are dwindling to the hardcore Israel haters. When they are not treated like royalty they get insulted, as if their articles in Mondoweiss make them into major journalists. And even today, when their ostensible friends in Germany are trying to tell them that they went off the deep end, they simply cannot wrap their brains around the idea that they look like complete idiots.
That is the reason that the pair so richly deserve this award.
Mazel Tov, Max and David! And don't worry - my rule of not giving repeats of awards does not apply to this category, so feel free to do more of your wacky antics in 2015!