Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; feature) – The title of the Oscar-winning documentary, No Other Land, reflects the sad reality that these people have no place else to go. The residents are mostly goat and sheep herders, and endure snow-blanketed winters and oppressive summer heat. An aging woman whose home has just been bulldozed says sadly, “We have no other land, that’s why we suffer for it.” Later in the film, her son Harun abu Amar is shot and paralyzed from the shoulders down trying to wrestle back his family’s generator from Israeli soldiers. Basel Adra, began filming the Israeli occupation of Masafer Yatta on his phone at age of 15, to visually tell the story. He’s lived his entire life at Masafer Yatta, posts episodes of the abuse as an online journalist, and holds a law degree.
Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, his creative partner, freely comes and goes between his free world and the increasingly severe restrictions of his friend, setting a stark contrast. When he learns on social media that the Israeli military forces are about to go in to Masafer Yatta, he goes to document the coming atrocity, and support the villagers. His Israeli citizenship and journalism credentials lend a veil of cover to carry on the task. Hamdan Ballal, a Masafer Yatta farmer, was the cinematographer for most of the footage, and the editor is Israeli Rachel Szor. The film depicts the slow drip of terror and destruction from 2019 to October 2023. Masafer Yatta is known for its ancient caves, and that’s where the residents retreat when their homes are destroyed.
One of the early scenes from 2019 shows Basel speculating that the US might intervene to stop the expulsions. That drew cynical chuckles from the audience at a progressive Oakland synagogue where I watched the documentary. The film carefully documents a series of increasingly violent, painful and brutal acts of intimidation to create an undeniable record of evidence. The viewer sees bulldozers destroying family homes as the adults loudly shame the occupiers, and their children cry. Bulldozers and backhoes destroy hygiene facilities, chicken coops and anything of functional value. Cement is poured into a village well, while the residents wail, protest and cry. Another early scene depicts a mother instructing her children and friends to “move the bedding deep into the cave,” moments after her home has been destroyed, as if it’s a practiced drill that’s occurred before. The sight of a flat screen TV on a cave wall is incongruous.
When the Israeli army comes to bulldoze the children’s playground, the mothers wail at the soldiers, and children cry. Footage depicts bulldozers wrecking homes and infrastructure, sometimes before the occupants have time to clear out belongings, among other heartbreaking scenes. Roughly three times a week, the Israeli army would stage in the woods nearby, and then muster in, verbally and forcefully moving people away from their homes before they were bulldozed. Painful arguments are the soundtrack. Sometimes they bulldoze family vehicles, leaving them no way to get around.
Yuval Abraham is not immediately accepted as a friendly among some villagers, but eventually earns enough trust to collaborate on telling their story. There are also tense moments between Yuval and Basel, who resents his friend’s freedom of movement, while he is confined to the villages. The presence of a young girl named Doha illuminates the cruelty and deprivation toward Palestinian children. Doha is seen doing a couple of cartwheels among the wreckage of their homes, acting like a normal kid. In a civilized world she would be in ballet and/or gymnastics classes. She also loved her school before it was destroyed. Destruction of the school, is one of the most disturbing scenes of all. The kids LOVED their school, as depicted when Basal’s niece stands in the family van, telling her dad to take her to school.
Aside from the terror inflicted by the Israeli army, marauding settlers pile on and bring fresh atrocities on their own. When Yuval or Basel calls the police to report this, the Israeli army stands by and lets the settlers rampage, beating people up, destroying property and at times shooting people dead. This story is a microcosm of 100’s of similar events throughout the West Bank territories of Palestine. These atrocities have been overshadowed by the horrors of the genocide in Gaza.
The footage throughout is a collection of family home videos, steady hand-held cinematography, and vertigo-inducing shots from when Basel is being beaten, like the body cam footage of the Capitol Police on J6,. One can’t find fault in any technicality, given the hardship under which this was made. The resourcefulness is tragically brilliant. Like the villagers of Masafer Yatta, who rebuild in the dark as soon as their homes are bulldozed. The sparseness of the music throughout brings a surprise when some form of resolution with strings and horns appears near the end.
Al-Mafkara, Masafer Yatta, December 2021. Author ציפי מנשה . Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Via Wikimedia Commons.
This film forces the viewer to participate in the anguishing scenes of calculated cruelty. It creates an undeniable record that can’t be ignored. There is a Michael Moore (Oscar for Bowling for Columbine) parallel here. The evil Ilan, who issues the Demolition Orders is the same character depicted in Michael Moore’s Roger and Me, in the person of the Genesee County Sheriff, who loves serving Eviction Notices even on Christmas Eve. Both are heartless and robotic with a sense of perverse enjoyment from the power trip. Ilan and Yuval are on a first name basis, and argue like schoolmates who hate each other. They’d love to slug it out (at least Yuval would), but professional boundaries prevent that.
Yuval is an Israeli journalist, whom Ilan can’t touch, unlike the villagers he torments. The Demolition Orders arise because the Palestinian applications for building permits are uniformly denied, but they build homes and wells anyway. As with Roger and Me, there is compelling storytelling with some very dark humor, and without a happy ending. Justice and fairness are absent in both films. But thankfully, there is a measure of justice among Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters, because No Other Land won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
That No Other Land, could not get a distributor in the US is troubling on many levels. University of Tennessee Professor Drew Paul illuminates some of the factors fueling the “hands off” approach to this film including avoidance of controversy, the stateless plight of Palestinian people, and lack of desire among theatre owners to have their property become a protest venue. Most of the US availability comes through Michael Tuckman Media, which manages theatrical releases bookings out of NYC. They facilitated the placements of the film at independent theatres, progressive synagogues and Islamic Community Centers in some major markets.
I saw the film at Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont, CA. (An older town surrounded by the City of Oakland.) It’s most astonishing that a film of such high acclaim is unable to gain traction with US distribution, after receiving dozens of prestigious awards from critics’ associations, journals, film societies, global and local US film festivals. The broad spectrum of honors includes venerable and prominent film festivals in Amsterdam, Berlin, London, LA, Athens, Toronto and Vancouver, with reach into smaller markets including North Dakota, Nashville, Austin and Hot Springs, ARK.
The story of Masafer Yatta is exemplary of many others, in the Israeli military campaign to violently intimidate the residents of centuries-old villages to quit. And if the Israeli army doesn’t get the job done, the lawless, sadistic settlers will. There is pensive dialogue between Yuval Abraham and Basal Arad. Maybe this is the most intense buddy movie of all time.. An intense exchange near the end reveals the depth of intimacy that developed between the two men
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