Any artistic or media production that exposes Israeli occupation practices against Palestinians deserves recognition, praise, and a wider audience. When it wins an Oscar, that wider audience often follows.
Such was the case with No Other Land, a 2024 documentary about Israel’s eviction of Palestinians in the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta region. Home to Palestinians, the bulldozers move in when it is designated by an Israeli court as a military firing zone.
Before scooping the coveted Academy Award in Los Angeles on 2 March, the documentary had won awards at film festivals and film societies across the United States, including Palm Springs, New York, Austin, Florida, San Francisco, Chicago, Seatle, San Diego, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Internationally, it won awards in London, Toronto, Vancouver, Brisbane, Berlin, Copenhagen, Poland, and Switzerland. Loved by critics, it took less than $1mn at the box office.
It was written and directed by an Israeli-Palestinian team comprising Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor. In 2022, Adra was beaten while filming an Israeli demolition in the West Bank. The following year he was detained after filming an attack in the West Bank by an Israeli army coordinator.
Profound implications
Any controversy or debate about the Oscar (including questions over Hollywood awarding a film that tells a Palestinian story of Israeli occupation) is often more reflective of audience reaction than it is of the film itself or its creators. Yet this film’s reception carries profound implications for the Palestinian cause and for broader condemnation of the Israeli occupation.
No Other Land does not initially seem connected to the war on Gaza (even though it is, at its core, a direct product of it—an ironic paradox), but without the global spotlight on Gaza, the plight of the Palestinians there, and the multifaceted American involvement in it, the film would likely not have garnered the attention it has.
Having long struggled to bring visibility to their cause, the four filmmakers—two Israelis and two Palestinians—stood side-by-side on stage to collect the Best Documentary Oscar. It became one of the striking images of the night for many, whether they had seen the film or not. That the documentary was a collaboration (with Norwegian production) added further symbolic weight.
In Hollywood’s liberal sphere, criticising settlement expansion or even the Israeli occupation is acceptable—just so long as such criticism does not challenge Israel’s fundamental nature. Israel’s Minister of Culture Miki Zohar, meanwhile, drew no such parameters, saying the film “defamed” and “sabotaged” Israel, and that its Academy Awards win was “a sad moment for cinema”.
He accused the filmmakers of “choosing to amplify narratives that distort Israel’s image” and urged cinemas to avoid screening it, saying: “The issue is more complex than that.” This kind of statement frames the occupation as a legal and bureaucratic matter, rather than a political or moral injustice.
Occupation, not dispute
The film does offer complexity, showing Palestinian residents—whose families have lived in these villages for generations—seeing their homes demolished by Israeli forces. Throughout the film, military and police patrols come and go, executing court demolition orders, before withdrawing.
To the untrained eye, it looks like a routine legal dispute over property between any two parties or states. The framing suggests that if such things happen, it is merely a consequence of legal rulings, not structural oppression that questions the legitimacy of the occupation.
It is a view largely shared across Western capitals and by some Israeli activists and human rights organisations in relation to the West Bank, particularly regarding settler attacks that the occupation facilitates, if not directly orchestrates.
Under Trump, such violations are no longer condemned with rhetoric. Even the symbolic sanctions imposed by his predecessor Joe Biden on extremist settler leaders accused of violence have now been lifted—an unmistakable signal that the horrors once confined to Gaza will now be replicated in the West Bank.
The perceived distinction that long stood—between a place deemed a haven for “terrorists” (Gaza) and another that harbours “moderates” (the West Bank)—has now disappeared. Palestinian land is now seen not in terms of a people’s homeland but in terms of its real estate potential. Ideological Israelis are jumping for joy. Trump’s administration is not merely following Israeli policy, but leading it.
Israel's narrative is that its actions in Gaza are legitimate counterterrorism measures, not war crimes or occupation. It portends that it is not seeking to make an entire land uninhabitable; it is just trying to dismantle terrorist infrastructure. But no such argument can be made in the West Bank, where settlement expansion is increasing at an alarming pace.
A skewed takeaway
Long before 7 October 2023, the Israelis—through the authority constructed in coordination with the Americans—had already extinguished any realistic prospects for a Palestinian state. For the US and Israel, the issue is not political, but procedural, administrative, bureaucratic. This is precisely the takeaway one gets by watching No Other Land.
Those who understand the conflict’s history and see Israel’s war on Palestinian territories as dismantling the Palestinian statehood project will find this film deeply disturbing. Yet it remains, for the distant observer—or even for its Israeli co-director, Yuval Abraham—merely an administrative and procedural affair. Unquestionably unjust, it is not, at its core, framed as a political issue.
The scenes depict a cat-and-mouse game between occupation soldiers, their bulldozers, and Palestinian farmers. It conveys an eerie sense of normalcy—more like a neighbours’ dispute than a struggle between occupiers and the occupied.
The Israeli journalist can be seen as the voice of Israeli moderation, which resonates with Western audiences. He stands in solidarity with the Palestinians, moves among them, helps them confront soldiers, and even helps them rebuild what is destroyed.
As the film illustrates, he, too, is subjected to persecution by soldiers and settlers, but ultimately, he carries a yellow ID (unlike the Palestinians, who carry green IDs). This lets him move freely between both sides and advocate for the Palestinian cause with less personal risk.
When accepting the award at the Oscars, Yuval was right to point this out, saying, "When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are unequal."
Far-removed discourse
Yuval is certainly to be commended for his role and his support for the Palestinians, but still, the discourse around the film and its award remains far removed from the heart of the issue: the illegal and immoral military occupation.
This is not merely about land seizures; it is about the systematic denial of an entire people’s right to exist. The conflict is not a legal dispute between the Israeli military and a civilian population; it is the perpetuation of a colonial enterprise.
Watching the film, it is impossible to ignore the stark contrast between the confrontations it portrays—depicted almost as a game of cat-and-mouse between Palestinians, soldiers, and settlers—and the sheer brutality that now unfolds in Gaza and the West Bank: systematic killings, mass arrests, and torture.
The illusion of a stable status quo—one that the film suggests existed within a certain framework—is no longer tenable. What was filmed between 2019-23 no longer reflects reality. During filming, occupation soldiers fired on only one Palestinian during those confrontations (who later died). Today, they would not be so restrained.
