No other land, no other truth

It was only on the occasion of the 25th Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, that the category of documentary films was added to the list of awards. In the more than 70 years since then, the award has continued to play an exceptional role in highlighting a wide range of social and political issues, helping to bring them to the attention of the wider public.
This year’s shortlisted documentaries included “Black Box Diaries,” about sexual violence, and “Porcelain Wars,” about the experiences of Ukrainian artists in the face of the Russian war on Ukraine. However, the members of the Academy chose as the winner “No Other Land,” a film about aspects of the conflict between Israel and Palestine made by an Israeli-Palestinian collective of four activists: Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor.
The Academy members chose it not because they did not think it would cause controversy, but because they knew it would, and for all the right reasons.
In the middle of the worst round of hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians since 1948, a film that focuses on the unremitting forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes in Masafer Yatta — an area in the South Hebron Hills of the West Bank that is home to 12 Palestinian villages with about 2,800 residents — has given a voice to one of the poorest and most defenseless Palestinian communities and their struggle for survival against the arbitrary Israeli occupation.
For that, the makers of this film fully deserve the accolades and applause that comes with the recognition by their fellow filmmakers.
The very existence of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the treatment of the Palestinian people is disturbing in its oppressiveness, its ruthlessness, and how arbitrary it is. Denying people their basic rights has become the rule rather than the exception, and in many cases it is done for the sole purpose of demonstrating who the masters of the land are.
The story of Masafer Yatta goes back to the 1980s, when Israeli authorities designated this part of the occupied West Bank as “Firing Zone 918,” a closed military site. Ever since then, residents have been at risk of forced eviction, the demolition of their homes, and forcible transfer. Two other villages, Khirbet Sarura and Kharoubeh, no longer exist because the homes of the people who lived there were razed to the ground.
The residents of Masafer Yatta have found no success in their efforts to seek the protection of the Israeli legal system, which as a general rule sides with the occupation, and so demolitions have continued.
Just last month, Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem reported that Israeli security forces had demolished seven cinder-block structures with tin roofs that were the homes of seven families, leaving 54 people, including 28 children, homeless. They also destroyed four caves, two water cisterns, two water tanks, and three solar panels used by some of the families.
This is the situation that “No Other Land” chronicles over the course of four years, from 2019 to 2023. Its main strength lies in the fact that with minimal commentary, it lets viewers make up their own minds and pass their own verdicts on where they stand on what they see.
“No Other Land” is not an attempt to tell the entire history or explain the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nor does it offer any solutions. It focuses on how an occupation corrupts the occupier and renders it callous as it inflicts suffering on the occupied, hardly viewing them as human beings at all.
When they demolish the homes of Palestinians, they leave the occupants homeless. When they destroy a school, children are deprived of education and future prospects. When they wreck a playground, they take away one of the small joys left to youngsters.

Denying people their basic rights has become the rule rather than the exception.

Yossi Mekelberg

This is not about security; these people are not a security risk. And the Israeli Civil Administration, the governing body in the West Bank, has had more than 40 years to resolve, humanely and compassionately, the situation of these people, had it genuinely cared for them.
Instead, as a consequence of this intolerable situation, Palestinians live in fear of eviction and of being attacked by the security forces and settlers. Meanwhile, they rely on foreign humanitarian assistance to build or rebuild their homes and public facilities, only for them to be repeatedly demolished by Israel’s security forces.
Interestingly enough, “No Other Land” has been heavily criticized from two diametrically opposed, but equally misguided, quarters — although the reaction from one of the groups of critics was a particular surprise.
The more obvious disapproval was voiced by Israeli officials, and right-wing politicians and commentators. One Israeli diplomat went so far as to say: “Under the guise of freedom of expression and art, antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric is celebrated.” Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar reacted to the film’s triumph at the Oscars by stating that “turning the defamation of Israel into a tool for international promotion is not art, it is sabotage against the State of Israel.”
But this film is neither anti-Israeli, nor antisemitic. It simply holds a mirror up to Israeli society and shows what is happening in that society’s name in the West Bank, especially to extremely vulnerable communities. Do they not like what they see because it is an inconvenient truth which they would rather continue to deny, as they have done for so many decades? Probably, yes.
If they are disturbed by what they see in this film, they should demand that this inhuman treatment stop immediately. Breaking the mirror into pieces will not change the reality in the West Bank, nor the fact that those who do not speak up against the immoral and illegal behavior of Israeli forces are complicit in making the lives of innocent people a misery.
More stupefying, though equally misguided, has been the criticism of “No Other Land” by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. For it to claim that the “film indeed violates the BDS movement’s anti-normalization guidelines,” would be comical if it was not so tragically dogmatic and damaging.
The premise of this Israeli-Palestinian cooperative film venture is based on joint opposition to the unacceptable and unbearable conditions under which the occupied population is forced to live. By creating this film, and winning prizes at some of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, its makers are exposing many millions of viewers around the world to the ill-treatment of the people of Masafer Yatta.
This is not normalization, this is Arabs and Israelis fighting shoulder-to-shoulder against normalization of the occupation by those who support it and those who remain in willful denial of it.
Those among us who believe Israelis and Palestinians are destined to live in peace with one another, and must eventually be reconciled, are encouraged by this cooperation between those whose mission is to bear witness to the daily injustices and suffering caused by this conflict.
They should not be decried for that but should only enjoy our praise and undying support. At the end of the day, neither of the two peoples have another land and so they must learn to share this one with mutual respect and dignity.

• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg