Oscars and Palestine
No Other Land Official UK Trailer
No Other Land
For half a decade, Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist, films his community of Masafer Yatta being destroyed by Israel’s occupation, as he builds an unlikely alliance with an Israeli journalist who wants to join his fight. No Other Land is an unflinching account of a community’s mass expulsion and acts as a creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice.
Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, has been fighting his community’s mass expulsion by the Israeli occupation since childhood. Basel documents the gradual erasure of Masafer Yatta, as soldiers destroy the homes of families – the largest single act of forced transfer ever carried out in the occupied West Bank. He crosses paths with Yuval, an Israeli journalist who joins his struggle, and for over half a decade they fight against the expulsion while growing closer. Their complex bond is haunted by the extreme inequality between them: Basel, living under a brutal military occupation, and Yuval, unrestricted and free. This film, by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists, was co-created during the darkest, most terrifying times in the region, as an act of creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice.
This is a photo of Basel Adra around the time he began years of filming his community Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank being destroyed by Israel’s occupation.
According to Amnesty International just a few days ago, Masafer Yatta “is at imminent risk of forcible transfer due to increasing state-backed settler attacks, as well as home demolitions, restrictions on access to land and illegal settlement expansion by the Israeli authorities.”
BASEL ADRA
“Thank you to the Academy for the award. It’s such a big honor for the four of us and everybody who supported us for this documentary. About two months ago, I became a father, and my hope to my daughter is that she will not have to live the same life I am living now, always fearing violence, home demolitions, forced displacement that my community, Masafer Yatta, is facing every day. ‘No Other Land’ reflects the harsh reality we have been enduring for decades and still resist as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.”
YUVAL ABRAHAM
“We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger. We see each other. The atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end; the Israeli hostages brutally taken in the crime of Oct. 7, which must be freed. When I look at Basel, I see my brother. But we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military laws, that destroy lives, that he cannot control. There is a different path, a political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people. And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path. Why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined? That my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe? There is another way. It’s not too late for life, for the living.”
The co-director of “No Other Land” called out American foreign policy while accepting the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film during Sunday’s Academy Awards.
Israeli filmmaker and journalist Yuval Abraham began his speech by calling out apartheid-like conditions in Israeli-occupied regions of the Palestinian territories.
Referring to his collaborator, Palestinian activist Basel Adra, he said, “When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are unequal.”
“We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law, and Basel is under military law that destroy his life and he cannot control,” Abraham continued. “There is a different path, a political solution. Without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people.”
He then turned his attention to the United States, whose staunch military support for Israel and recent decision to freeze humanitarian aid across the world are having dire consequences in Gaza.
“I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path,” Abraham said.
“Can’t you see that we are intertwined? That my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe? There is another way.”
This Oscar Winner Just Used His Speech To Call Out U.S. Policy On Israel. “No Other Land,” a documentary about the Israeli-occupied West Bank, won Best Documentary Feature Film at Sunday’s awards by Kelby Vera, HuffPost, Mar 2, 2025
As directors Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor took the stage to accept the best documentary Oscar for their work on “No Other Land,” they took the opportunity to make a robust plea for “a political solution” to the war in Gaza.
“We call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people,” said Adra, a Palestinian journalist. “About two months ago, I became a father, and my hope to my daughter that she will not have to live the same life I’m living now.”
‘No Other Land’ Directors Use Oscar Speech to Call on World ‘to Stop the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinian People’ by Matt Minton and Adam B. Vary, Variety, March 2, 2025
Masafer Yatta
The Palestinian community of Shi’b Al-Butum in Masafer Yatta is at imminent risk of forcible transfer due to increasing state-backed settler attacks, as well as home demolitions, restrictions on access to land and illegal settlement expansion by the Israeli authorities, Amnesty International said today.
This herding community, home to some 300 Palestinians, is one of the 12 communities that make up the area of Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, and that for decades has been subjected to growing state-backed settler attacks and oppressive measures by the Israeli authorities. Since 7 October 2023 the situation has significantly worsened. Unless measures are immediately taken to hold violent settlers accountable, stop home demolitions and the expansion of nearby settlements, this community – like others in the area – will be forcibly displaced.
“The situation of the Shi’b Al-Butum community is a microcosm of what Palestinians, in particular herding and Bedouin communities, are facing across most of the occupied West Bank. Settlers trespass on their land, vandalize and steal their property, harass and physically assault them with total impunity,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns.
“Through the cumulative impact of decades of occupation and apartheid, including violence, institutionalized discrimination and illegal settlement expansion, Israel is deliberately creating a coercive environment that as a result drives Palestinians like those in the Shi’b Al-Butum off their land. Unlawful transfer –the forced removal of civilians against their will – is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and amounts to a war crime.”
“Deeply entrenched impunity for settler violence and the longstanding failure of the international community to act to halt the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements or to end Israel’s occupation are facilitating the unlawful transfer of Palestinian communities, which is a war crime. Instead of continuing to enable Israel’s relentless land grab, with devastating consequences for Palestinians, world leaders must press Israel to end its unlawful occupation and dismantle its system of apartheid against Palestinians,” said Erika Guevara Rosas.
In addition to Shib al-Butum, nine other communities in Masafer Yatta are at imminent risk of forced displacement as the Israeli military declared their villages part of a military training zones. The plight of these communities, and their struggle to remain on their ancestral lands are featured in the documentary “No Other Land“, recently nominated for the Oscars.
Israel/OPT: Masafer Yatta community in occupied West Bank under imminent threat of forcible transfer by Amnesty International, Feb 27, 2025
My blog posts about ‘No Other Land’
https://unflinching.blog/2024/12/10/no-other-land/
https://unflinching.blog/2025/01/07/gaza-war-films/
