Why is America afraid of ‘No Other Land’?

No Other Land, an Israeli-Palestinian co-production, received an Academy Award for best documentary on Sunday. The list of 45 awards the movie has won since its release in 2024, including best documentary at the 2024 European Film Awards, the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival, and the 2024 Gotham Awards, has now been expanded to include the Oscar, which is a first for Palestine.

In international media, the film has received lauded praise and glowing five-star ratings. It has been screened worldwide, and independent American screenings have consistently turned out to be in order. However, no US distributor would pick it up and distribute it nationwide. Only because of its Palestine-related subject matter.

The Israeli army has designated Masafer Yatta, a southern occupied West Bank region known as a “military zone,” as a “military zone” for Palestinian communities, as the documentary follows them. Israeli troops and illegal settlers regularly harass and evict its residents, causing them to go without. The co-directors, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and Palestinian activist Basel Adra, both interpret the narrative.

Distributors are ostensibly reluctant to display this brutal, horrifying account of Israel’s ongoing crimes. And this is in a nation that takes pride in having the constitution’s free speech right.

The distributors’ fear is a fantastic illustration of how extensive the campaign to eradicate Palestine in the US is, affecting everything from politics to arts and film to education to media.

Anti-Palestinian censorship is not new, of course. Palestinian history and culture have repeatedly been the subject of attempts to be destroyed since 1948, when Israel has vowed to stop the Palestinian people from grabbing their land. In Western nations, which have supported Israel throughout its existence, especially the United States, this narrative has also dominated public opinion.

Political support must always be maintained, which is essential.

Public opinion would start to change dramatically if more information was made available to the American public about what was happening in Palestine, if Palestinians were subjected to mainstream humanization, and if they were given a chance to share their accounts of genocide and apartheid.

It already exists. According to a number of polls conducted in the past year, Americans, particularly Democrats, were against their government’s policies in regards to Israel-Palestine. When the administration of President Joe Biden refused to support a ceasefire in Gaza, the majority of Democrats voted in favor of it. In the end, Kamala Harris lost countless votes in the presidential election due to this position.

The US Congress would have to repress the US Congress’s ability to support the US military’s multibillion-dollar funding of the Israeli military and political support for occupation and apartheid if there were to be a significant change in public opinion regarding Israel-Palestine.

In light of this, Israel itself must continue its campaign to silence Palestinian voices, stories, and history.

No Other Land’s difficulties have been overcome by its release, but they are more than just another example of anti-Palestinian censorship.

Palestinians and Israelis have shared stories in the movie. In the documentary, Abraham’s voice is heard talking about what is happening in Palestine as well as Adra’s.

Our voices are stronger together, the latter stated in his Oscar acceptance speech. In fact, if the movie had been entirely made in Palestine, it would have been labeled as biased and struggled to garner the same amount of global attention. Although having an Israeli co-director opened some doors, it also made the situation more “dangerous.”

Abraham said in his speech, “We are unequal when I look at Basel, but I see my brother. I am free under civilian law, but Basel is subject to military laws that he cannot control that would end his life. A different path exists. Without ethnic supremacy, there is no political solution.

It is obvious that an Israeli like Abraham is against apartheid and occupation. It contradicts the popular belief that all Palestinians only want to see all Jews wiped out and that Israel is the moral compass.

Many Jewish Americans have spoken out against Israel and share Abraham’s opinions. They have been harassed, censored, accused of anti-Semitism, and even taken into custody during demonstrations in addition to being referred to as “self-hating Jews” by Israel’s supporters.

Many Jews have been targeted by such attacks, often claiming they are “contradicting anti-Semitism” or “out of concern for Jewish safety.”

After receiving his award acceptance speech at the Berlin Film Festival last year, Abraham was made to feel “unsafe and unwelcome” in Germany, the nation that has given its priority to the protection of Israel and the Jewish people.

No Other Land, according to the website of the city of Berlin, “appears anti-Semitic tendencies,” while German politicians rushed to label his speech as “anti-Semitic”.

Since beginning its genocidal campaign in Gaza, Germany has only increased its support for Israel, just like the US. Both nations have become barriers to peace as a result, just like the rest of Israel’s supporters in the West.

Abraham made an adage in his acceptance speech that Abraham claimed that US “foreign policy is preventing the peace process.”

No Other Land has had remarkable success despite the difficulties it has encountered. The filmmakers have chosen to self-distribute across limited theaters because they are still trying to reach a wider audience in the US. Visit the movie’s website to find out where the movie is showing.

Americans must see No Other Land, a powerful movie. We hold responsibility, as Adra pointed out in a recent interview for Democracy Now. His community’s destruction, which has only increased in the last year, is funded by our tax money.

A few weeks before the Oscars, Adra wrote on social media that “Masafer Yatta is disappearing in front of my eyes.”

Americans must act immediately.

Source: Aljazeera