No Other Land shows Israeli occupation cannot be whitewashed
Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal and Yuval Abraham pictured at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles after their film ‘No Other Land’ won the Oscar for best documentary, 2 March 2025
Ahmad Tibi writes in Middle East Eyeon 12 March 2025:
The uproar surrounding the documentary No Other Land is unsurprising. Films that document the occupation and expose its unbearable human consequences always provoke harsh reactions from the Israeli establishment.
The film focuses on the daily realities of Palestinians in the Masafer Yatta area – one that includes home demolitions, family expulsions, dispossession and land theft.
The film reflects what is happening on the ground, but for many in Israel, the mere presentation of reality is seen as a crime.
Attacks on the film have been led by Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar, who accused the film of “defamation” and “distorting Israel’s image”. This is a familiar argument: any documentation of the occupation is framed as defamation, and any depiction of reality deemed incitement.
But there is no other way to portray the occupation; one cannot describe the expulsion of families from Masafer Yatta without exposing the injustices at its core. There is no way to document soldiers preventing residents from accessing water or electricity without understanding that this is a policy of control, discrimination and oppression.
Criticism of the film has extended beyond the political establishment, with journalists and cultural figures in Israel attacking as a “traitor” one of the film’s directors, Yuval Abraham, who is Israeli.
Silencing the truth
This is a recurring pattern: any Israeli who dares to expose the crimes of the occupation is immediately shunned and denounced.