Palestinian Basel Adra, right, and Israeli Yuval Abraham receive the documentary award for No Other Land at the International Film Festival, Berlinale, in Berlin on Feb. 24, 2024.Markus Schreiber/The Associated Press
So many things sprang to mind when Donald Trump let slip his grand plans for Gaza on Tuesday – many of which are unprintable here. How odious it is for him to declare that Gazans should be resettled in other Arab countries, and that the U.S. take ownership of the land to create a “Riviera of the Middle East.” How this man elected to be president of a single country actually has his sights set on the world. How some of those who elected him – voters who said no to Kamala Harris because of what they saw as her government’s support of Israel – must really be having some regrets right about now. How we all kind of knew, from the moment Mr. Trump first talked about Gaza’s “phenomenal location” on inauguration day, that something ominous was on the horizon. Did the President then see photos of the streams of displaced, war-weary Palestinians returning to what were once their homes, and focus not on these people but on what was to the left of them? The sea! The beach!
I also thought of No Other Land. It will be hard to watch this documentary without thinking of Mr. Trump’s absurd Gaza proposal – without picturing what it would wreak on the ground, for actual people. It’s hard to watch, period. And, it hardly needs to be said, it’s hard to watch the world, especially Canada – but now the Middle East too – tilt and teeter under Mr. Trump.
No Other Land, an extraordinary film made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, documents the Israeli army’s campaign to dismantle a group of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank.
“Something is about to happen,” a voice over a communication device warns in Arabic, near the film’s beginning, as resident Basel Adra waits tensely. Mr. Adra’s earliest memory, from the age of five, was his father’s first arrest. By the time he was seven, he was attending protests.
Mr. Adra begins filming as the Israeli Supreme Court rules that more than 1,000 Palestinians living in Masafer Yatta must be evicted to make way for Israeli military training. He is soon joined by an Israeli journalist, Yuval Abraham, who is outraged at his own country’s actions. (”You’re a ‘human rights’ Israeli?” one of the local, somewhat skeptical Palestinians asks.) They have collaborated with Palestinian Hamdan Ballal and Israeli Rachel Szor to make this crucial film – very difficult to sit through, but a must-watch.
Israeli soldiers yell as Palestinians gather things from their homes – mattresses, plastic chairs, a little bike with training wheels. Then in come the bulldozers.
It’s sickening.
After the army departs, the Palestinians move their things – and themselves – into caves. This is where, later, a paralyzed man – shot by the Israeli army – will have to recuperate: on a mat on a floor in a dusty cave.
There is more to come, including attacks by Israeli settlers, caught on film. (Just this week Mr. Adra posted about settlers attacking Masafer Yatta once again.) A demolition notice is placed on the children’s playground. Locals try to save the school. “Aren’t you ashamed to do this?” a Palestinian woman asks the Israeli soldiers.
A sign posted by Israel warns that the area is a military zone; entrance is forbidden. “Danger,” it once read in thick, capital letters. But the D has been erased; it reads “anger.”
For Palestinians and Muslims, this is a difficult film, documenting their people’s pain. But any viewer with a pulse will feel anguish – including, maybe especially, anyone who cares for and about Israel. In one charged scene, Mr. Abraham challenges the Israeli army for taking the Palestinians’ building tools. A soldier asks the Israeli why he cares. “I care because it’s all done in my name,” Mr. Abraham says.
No Other Land has won many festival prizes and is nominated for the Academy Award for best documentary. But it couldn’t land a North American distribution deal, no doubt because of the subject matter. So the filmmakers are releasing the film independently; it lands in Toronto and Vancouver theatres on Friday.
In the film, Mr. Adra says documenting the destruction may force the U.S. to press Israel to stop the expulsions.
Today, the threat is coming from the would-be saviour.
Mr. Trump called Gaza a “hellhole” as he floated his plan at a news conference Tuesday. What kind of god complex allows for this kind of unilateral, devilish declaration?
No Other Land is a stark reminder that the Palestinians displaced by the Israel-Hamas war and now under threat of permanent displacement by Mr. Trump’s ambitions are in fact people. They are not pawns or faceless figures in a geopolitical dust-up. They are people who want to live their lives in peace, and to live those lives at home. And home is Gaza.