No Other Land

Journalism is resistance. In these terrifying times, it’s become a mantra of the right that the media is the enemy, but that’s a trite, evil perspective. Journalism, at its best, is a resistance to lies, oppression, division, and despair, and that’s where the lines between activists and journalists blur: If an activist is fighting against those same sins, then their nearest ally will always be the journalist. By extrapolation, those that oppose them oppose truth, liberty, unity, and hope.

It’s therefore seemingly inevitable that, once their paths cross, Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham would become friends and collaborators. They could be brothers: skinny, casually dressed, shaggy hair a little long between haircuts. That Adra is Palestinian and Abraham is Israeli seems of little relevance to Oscar-nominated Palestinian-Norwegian documentary No Other Land except for a few moments. When Abraham visits Adra’s village for the first time and he asks if the other locals have asked if he’s Israeli. When an old man, sitting in the remains of his bulldozed community, half-jokingly tells Abraham that his relatives have done this. Or when another grimly notes that Abraham can go home and get a shower, but the uprooted Palestinians literally have nowhere to go.

The site of the two men’s meeting is Masafer Yatta, an interlocked community of 19 villages in the West Bank that was home to a few thousand Palestinian farmers and workers. “Was” is the operative word: In 2022, half the area was flattened by bulldozers protected by troops. The Israeli government argued that the residents had 22 years of legal challenges as warning, but there are few scenes more disturbing this year than watching an officious bureaucrat, with masked and helmeted gunmen behind him, tying a demolition order to a playground. That is, until the next horrifying scene of callous inhumanity.

Filmed by Adra and cinematographer and co-director Rachel Szor, and constructed with pained restraint by editor and fourth director Hamdan Ballal, No Other Land is not the story of Israelis versus Palestinians. Instead, it’s a depiction of unity against an oppressive force – in this case, uniformed bullies harassing the residents out of their home. It’s weaponized gentrification, and a reminder that this was all happening well before the Israeli government’s demolition by artillery campaign in Gaza. If anything, this smaller, tighter scale makes that ongoing war crime (a term also applied to the Masafer Yatta evictions) easier to understand at its core level – people losing their homes, their families, their heritage.

What truly shines is the budding friendship between Abraham and Adra. The young Israeli – who ascribes his political awakening to the simple act of learning Arabic – may have more formal journalism training and is afforded some protection because he’s Israeli, but still has a level of naivete to him. Adra, by comparison is much more world-wise on the scale of the opponent they face, teasing his new friend about thinking he can solve everything in a week. But in that amiable joshing, there are also bitter truths: that Abraham can always just leave, but Adra is stuck there. As grotesque as the scenes of attacks and targeted harassment – and, increasingly, right-wing media attacks on the duo – become, they’re not quite as heartbreaking as when the two young men talk of flying away together. An impossible dream made all the more painful when you remember that many of Adra’s friends and families are quite literally living in caves.

Yet No Other Land is inherently hopeful. Even as the bulldozers rumble, and soldiers take the safety off around kids, and goons point cameras in Abraham’s face and threaten Facebook-fueled revenge, there’s hope that the juggernaut of oppression can be stopped.