“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary

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Speaker 14 In a week of astonishing headlines, maybe nothing was more astonishing than Donald Trump's proposal that the United States take over Gaza, ethnically cleanse the region of Palestinians, permanently exiling a population already traumatized by war, and then turn the whole thing into what Trump calls the Riviera of the Middle East.

Speaker 16 Was this a serious proposal?

Speaker 9 It certainly put a smile on the face of Benjamin Netanyahu, who's not only intent on obliterating Hamas in Gaza, but at the same time, making Israel's control of the West Bank irreversible.

Speaker 16 Even Even if Trump's proposal was merely part of his strategy of flooding the zone, the reality is no less troubling.

Speaker 17 And to understand what that reality is, particularly in the West Bank, there's a new documentary film that you should see called No Other Land.

Speaker 14 In one scene, Palestinians are protesting the demolition of their homes.

Speaker 17 They're walking down the road carrying balloons and banners.

Speaker 17 But the protest is banned under Israeli law and the army is at the ready alongside them with combat gear, rifles and stun grenades.

Speaker 14 No Other Land is opening in just a handful of theaters around the country this week. It's been nominated as Best Documentary at the Academy Awards.

Speaker 16 Two Palestinian and two Israeli filmmakers collaborated to make No Other Land, and I spoke over Zoom with two of them, Basil Adra, who lives in the West Bank, and Yuval Abraham, who lives in Jerusalem.

Speaker 12 Because so few people have seen this film, I'd like to begin first of all. This is first and foremost, begins with Basil's life.

Speaker 15 Tell me where you were born.

Speaker 20 And what was the impulse to make a film about your life and the circumstances the people all around you?

Speaker 21 So I was born in a small community in the southern occupied

Speaker 21 the West Bank, Masafriata, at my little small village called Altuani.

Speaker 21 I was born and raised there. My parents are like the other families in Masafriata are farmers, like keep sheep and cultivate the land.
And this is how the people live in our area.

Speaker 21 But today,

Speaker 21 it's different for sure because we don't have access to the majority of the land due to the settlements and military bases are built on our land for this past decade.

Speaker 21 So, my parents all the time were like activists and were trying to change the reality that we are living in, as you saw a little bit of the stories in the No Other Land documentary.

Speaker 10 And how you wanted to make him film about your community, about the West Bank for a long time?

Speaker 21 So for me, it wasn't the idea from the beginning.

Speaker 21 I started like when I was a teenager to take a camera and document what's going on around me and to me, to my family, to the community that I live in, in order to have the evidence.

Speaker 21 And as well, I was like a bit kind of angry and want the world to know that we face what we face and we're living in these conditions and people should care about what's happening to us and it should not continue.

Speaker 24 This is what's happening in my village now.

Speaker 22 Soldiers are everywhere.

Speaker 14 And where were you sending this evidence?

Speaker 21 So some of them we used for social media.

Speaker 21 All of them are in our archive on our hand.

Speaker 21 Some of the footage that we got helped different people in court cases as evidence and as a proof against the claims of the settler soldiers when they try to lie about certain incidents.

Speaker 21 So we would have evidence that we filmed that incident to show to the judge or to the court.

Speaker 21 This is what we do mainly to film what's going on and to move in the field with families, with the school students during demolitions.

Speaker 21 And then Yuval and Rachel came to Masafriat five years ago.

Speaker 12 This is Yuval Abraham and Rachel Zor who were Israeli and started coming to the West Bank.

Speaker 21 And then Yuval and Rachel kept coming to Masafriata almost weekly.

Speaker 21 And the relationship became like stronger because we spent more time together and in the field, in the house.

Speaker 21 And then Hamdan actually had the idea and said, when we were like sitting together, like, guys, let's make a movie documentary about all the footage that we have.

Speaker 21 We didn't have the experience in doing so, all of us, but we all agreed in the idea. And

Speaker 21 we started this project like five years ago together, and we released the movie February 2024.

Speaker 12 It seems that as filmmakers, Basel, one of the

Speaker 15 great assets, advantages that you had, and I don't say this as a joke, is your ability to run really fast with a camera away from dangerous

Speaker 11 situations?

Speaker 18 Can you talk about that a little bit?

Speaker 21 Yeah, actually,

Speaker 21 you're right. Like, and I remember now in 2021, it was like,

Speaker 21 to be honest, maybe the biggest settler physical attack against the community that ever I filmed in my life.

Speaker 21 I got like a phone call and there was like almost 60 to 80 masked settlers with guns.

Speaker 21 They were like smashing windows and throwing rocks inside the houses at the people, at cars, and

Speaker 21 people were like literally fleeing from their homes to the valleys and to the fields and trying to run away from the settlers. I stood

Speaker 21 kind of

Speaker 21 less than 50 meters in front of about like 15 to 20 masked settlers. They were like smashing a home and two cars near it.
One of the settlers saw that I'm filming

Speaker 21 and he called others and they start to run after me. I was in flip-flop even,

Speaker 21 not in good shoes to run.

Speaker 21 And

Speaker 21 for real it was

Speaker 21 so scary, but I was faster and

Speaker 21 I made it and I escaped from them.

Speaker 23 I hate being with Basel on the field because I'm much slower than him. So he always runs.
I'm behind him. I also

Speaker 23 smoke more, so I'm

Speaker 23 less in shape.

Speaker 19 And

Speaker 12 when you started working on this film alongside Basel and the others, you came to this from what background?

Speaker 16 You're an Israeli citizen.

Speaker 8 Can I correct?

Speaker 13 Jewish?

Speaker 23 I actually came to this through journalism or to be, to even go even a step backwards. In a way, I came to this through the Arabic language, I think, because

Speaker 23 when I was younger, I studied Arabic. I grew up

Speaker 23 in quite a mainstream Israeli town, not meeting Palestinians, not knowing a lot about what is happening in the West Bank.

Speaker 23 And after I began studying Arabic, it really changed my life. It changed me politically, but I think also emotionally.

Speaker 23 My grandfather, who is a Jewish person born in Jerusalem and his family is originally from Yemen, he spoke fluent Palestinian Arabic.

Speaker 23 But then,

Speaker 23 you know, after this family connection, I began also meeting Palestinians. First, Palestinians who are citizens of Israel.
And gradually, I began going more and more into the West Bank.

Speaker 23 And I think the knowledge of Arabic and Hebrew is sort of what's made me a journalist.

Speaker 12 A lot of the footage that you gathered with your colleagues and a major focus of the film is on home demolitions conducted by Israeli military or Israeli crews.

Speaker 17 Could you explain what that's about, Yuvo?

Speaker 23 Wherever you look in the West Bank and also inside Israel, for example, in the Negev, you see Palestinian houses being... bulldozed.

Speaker 23 You see Palestinian villages where they have no connection to water or electricity and they are unable to obtain a permit. The Israeli military declines.
It's almost 99%

Speaker 23 of Palestinian requests for building permits, according to data that the military has supplied to organizations like BIMCOM and others, Israeli human rights organizations, that are researching this issue.

Speaker 23 And when I looked in the Israeli media or I began talking to Israeli friends from where I grew up or my family, The response I always got was, well, they're building illegally. This is a legal issue.

Speaker 23 They did not obtain a permit and it's illegal.

Speaker 23 But when I began researching and looking at documents and looking at statistics, you very quickly realize that it's a political issue, that there is a systematic effort to prevent this acquisition of building permits.

Speaker 23 But I think for me, what was most important and shocking when I first met Basil, this is like the first day that we met.

Speaker 23 I remember there was a house demolition happening in Basel's village and we ran to it.

Speaker 23 I remember like the soldiers threw stun grenades and they kicked this person out of his house and destroyed the house. And there was so much violence there at that moment.

Speaker 23 I remember like the children looking at it and the family then not sure what to do and where will they go and where will they sleep. And I felt it's very wrong, you know, that this is happening.

Speaker 23 And I felt a certain responsibility, I guess, to communicate that first and firstmost to Israelis. So I began writing mainly in Hebrew.

Speaker 23 And something about that experience really drew me back to come back

Speaker 23 to Masafariata and to basically witness this happening over and over again.

Speaker 24 They come and demolish our homes and keep saying to the media that we are building illegally.

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Speaker 18 Yuval, what can an independent film like yours do?

Speaker 20 What kind of effect can it have?

Speaker 23 I can tell you what I know for sure: that films have effects on individuals and they change the hearts of individuals. And the only reason why I know this for a fact is because it happens to me.

Speaker 23 Like when I was younger,

Speaker 23 I remember I watched a documentary called Five Broken Cameras, which was also nominated nominated for an Oscar and was created by an Israeli-Palestinian team. And it really, really touched me.

Speaker 23 And it really made me question some of the beliefs I grew up with.

Speaker 12 Because what kind of narratives were you raised on about Palestine and Palestinians as you were growing up?

Speaker 23 I grew up 25 minutes away from Basil's village near the Del Sheva area, which is in the south of Israel. And I mean,

Speaker 23 I lived my life and...

Speaker 23 you know, you don't know or you don't see, or maybe you see, but you kind of tune tune out of the realities happening in the West Bank and what Pascal's community has been going through.

Speaker 23 I would always hear about Palestinian teenagers in the West Bank throwing stones at Israeli soldiers or at Israeli settlers.

Speaker 23 And when you don't know anything about the context, when you imagine that they're just living normal lives like your lives, the explanation that you put on these acts of violence is always going to be they're doing that because they hate us, because they are evil.

Speaker 9 Would you extend that understanding to something like october 7th

Speaker 23 no look i do believe that and this is i'm not the only israeli israelis talk about this all the time that part of the conditions which allowed for october 7th was an israeli right-wing policy for decades that set to empower hamas in gaza weaken more moderate palestinians keep a separation between the gaza strip and the west bank to prevent a palestinian state i do believe that people retain moral agency.

Speaker 23 So I think horrible war crimes were committed on October 7th. Three people that I knew were killed on October 7th.
Even people who are oppressed still have moral agency.

Speaker 23 And, you know, and kidnapping children or massacring civilians is wrong. And the people who are committing that have a moral responsibility.

Speaker 23 And I see this tendency both in the Palestinian side and also in the Israeli side to not assume responsibility for crimes or actions because the other side has committed the crimes.

Speaker 23 And looking at, you know, October 7th, it's almost a year and a half since where, you know, if 38 Israeli children were killed on October 7th, each one of their deaths is a crime.

Speaker 23 We have now in Gaza 17,000 children, 10,000 children who are missing.

Speaker 23 And when you talk with Israelis about this, they have this mirror image of justification where they point to the crime of October 7th and say, well, this justifies everything that we have done since.

Speaker 13 Yuval, do you feel like a stranger in your own land politically?

Speaker 11 Because the polls would suggest, my interviews would suggest, the Israeli press would suggest that the way you look at the situation now is

Speaker 11 utterly alien to Israeli society.

Speaker 23 My views are a minority view in Israel.

Speaker 15 I don't mean a minority.

Speaker 9 I mean a vanishingly small minority, no?

Speaker 23 You're right. Recently there was a vote in the Knesset about a statement where the Israeli Knesset says there will never be a Palestinian state.
And there are 120 Knesset members, parliament members.

Speaker 23 The statement passed, and only eight parliament members, I think that was the number, eight, or maybe it was nine, opposed. Out of 120, most of the eight were Palestinian Israelis.

Speaker 23 There was only one Jewish Israeli parliament member who opposed that. So this is a pressing issue.
And it's very terrifying for me because I think that you are right.

Speaker 23 I mean, there is no discourse here locally that could lead to a political solution. And we are hungry for hope.

Speaker 12 Basil, there's a very powerful scene in the film that shows a peaceful protest against the destruction of your village and other villages.

Speaker 11 Can you describe how dangerous peaceful protests can be in the West Bank?

Speaker 15 It's not really legal to protest, is that right?

Speaker 21 No, under the military law, it's illegal. We can't have any protest against the occupation.

Speaker 21 It's very, very dangerous sometimes. It can be not just a masafiriata.

Speaker 21 And all over the years, like many Palestinians lost their life protesting against the occupation on those kinds of protests.

Speaker 21 In our documentary, you can see the story of Harun Abaram, a guy like our age, who was shot in his neck by Israeli soldiers just because he tried to protest the soldiers taking the generator that his family used for electricity.

Speaker 21 And he was paralyzed for two years and then passed away due to his injury.

Speaker 9 Basil, you have been showing this film all around the world.

Speaker 11 What has been

Speaker 12 the result of your touring this film?

Speaker 21 Yeah, around the world, we're like very emotional, and a lot of times would like cry and also stand up and greet us.

Speaker 21 And it's like amazing, I think.

Speaker 21 We didn't thought, to be honest, when we were working in this movie, that we will get this amount of awards and be nominated for the Oscar, which is all important for the movie and the story itself.

Speaker 21 But in the other side, it's sad because

Speaker 21 we've made this movie from a perspective of activism to try to save the community, to try to have political pressure and impact for the community itself.

Speaker 21 But unfortunately, all the reality today is changing the opposite side, which is to be more

Speaker 21 miserable and bad.

Speaker 13 The reality on the ground.

Speaker 21 Yes.

Speaker 19 Is One of the difficult things for a film like this, and look, I feel it sometimes too,

Speaker 12 is that you're sometimes preaching to the converted, Yuval.

Speaker 18 You're showing your film to people who already are inclined to agree with you or in your political camp, and that to reach people

Speaker 12 whose mind you want to change most profoundly,

Speaker 13 they're not turning it on.

Speaker 12 They're not entering the theater.

Speaker 19 They're not clicking on your film.

Speaker 17 They're watching something else.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 23 Well, I think this is why the Oscars help because, you know, when a film is nominated, then suddenly, and I see this now in Israeli society, we released the film now online in Israel and Palestine.

Speaker 23 And of course, it's challenging, but you know, I'm beginning to read comments from Israelis who are not necessarily like me, as you said, they're not part of the, did you call it a dying minority or like, sorry, a small, small minority, which I hope changes.

Speaker 23 You know, because for me, I feel this is my main responsibility as an Israeli is to work with the Israeli society and to try to, I'm going to have a bunch of interviews on mainstream Israeli media and to try to show people, you know, the way in which I see the world and to try to convince them to come to come closer.

Speaker 18 I sometimes think that Israeli contact with the West Bank, much less Gaza, is almost solely through the military.

Speaker 16 I was once writing a piece about Haaretz and I was talking with the owner of Haaretz, Amos Shakin.

Speaker 12 And I asked him about what his experience of the West Bank had been.

Speaker 18 He said, I've never been there.

Speaker 15 I read about it in Haaretz.

Speaker 12 Wow. And that is the owner of the most left-wing paper in Israel.

Speaker 23 This is a key issue, David.

Speaker 23 If I look at, you know, the few years that we had leading to October 7th that had the protests against the judicial overhaul, against the weakening of the Israeli judicial system and the Supreme Court, which were policies that Netanyahu had tried to promote.

Speaker 23 You know, this was something that was led by, let's say, the Israeli center left, the liberal community in Israel. Many of them live in Tel Aviv.

Speaker 23 And I would attend those protests because I thought they were important.

Speaker 23 But one word that was missing there, because people were chanting democracy and democracy, that was missing from the mainstream side of this protest was occupation, was Palestinians, was a political solution.

Speaker 23 And I think that for far too long, the Israeli liberal side has sort of allowed, not only allowed, but had contributed for things that were happening in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza.

Speaker 23 And there's a contradiction here that we are seeing today. I mean, things are related.

Speaker 23 Many people on the left have warned for many, many years that, you know, what is happening to the Palestinians will eventually seep through into the Israeli society.

Speaker 23 And of course, like the Israeli right is getting stronger, and then the oppression of Palestinians is getting bigger, and then Hamas is getting stronger.

Speaker 23 And then by attacking Israeli civilians, the Israeli right is getting, but there is this loop that we are seeing where it's like a win-win for those who do not want a political solution.

Speaker 23 And I think it's really important to understand it's not some binary thing. It's not like either the Palestinians win or the Israelis win.
In a sense, it's either we all win or we all lose.

Speaker 23 And I hope that the Israeli liberals, to get back to my previous point, will not continue to protect the occupation or apartheid.

Speaker 23 And we will try to work to have an alternative because we really need this. We need this like water, really.
There will be no other way forward if there is no political horizon.

Speaker 11 Basil, for many, it's very hard to imagine how things can get any worse in Palestine, in Gaza, West Bank, and in the political atmosphere of Israel as well.

Speaker 11 What do you hope that this film inspires in the people that take the time to see it?

Speaker 21 Well, we did this movie again from perspective of activism and for real, like we want to change people's minds because many of the people that's going to watch this are in somehow responsible

Speaker 21 Because this is their money, this is their governments, this is their countries that's supporting this reality and supporting the ongoing occupation, even if in their words will not say it, but in their actions, this is what they do.

Speaker 21 And so we want these people to understand and to inspire them to and to encourage them that they should

Speaker 21 take part in this in any kind of action, small, big, protest, pressure How do you imagine the Academy Awards ceremony if you had that opportunity

Speaker 20 Very short opportunity before the music starts and they chase you off the stage?

Speaker 18 What would you like to say to the world in that brief time?

Speaker 23 We have 45 seconds and Basil needs to speak first I think but I think for me if if if I will say something concrete about the current moment I think for me what is the most urgent thing is that all um stages of the ceasefire will be implemented.

Speaker 23 And there's a very high risk. I think, in the short term, the pressure should really be on moving and doing all the stages of the ceasefire agreement so we can get out of this current

Speaker 23 bloodbath that we are in and begin

Speaker 23 hopefully working for a political solution.

Speaker 17 Pazil Adra Yuval Ibrahim, thank you so much.

Speaker 23 Thank you very much. Thank you.

Speaker 12 No Other Land opened in New York and it's coming to a few major cities this weekend. Also on the filmmaking team for No Other Land are Hamdan Balal and Rachel Zor.

Speaker 12 The film has been nominated for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards for next month.

Speaker 14 I'm David Remnick.

Speaker 9 That's our show for today.

Speaker 12 Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 9 See you next time.

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Speaker 7 This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer, with guidance from Emily Botine and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett, the New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Torina Endowment Fund.

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Speaker 29 I know there's going to be a twist, wasn't there? A massive twist. At every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover-up in this case.

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