Skip to main content

Oscar winning 'No Other Land': Powerful examination of life under Israeli occupation

By Fr. Cedric Prakash SJ 
Many years ago, there was a popular American song which one gustily sang at camps, picnics and other get-togethers. Thanks to its very catchy tune, it was always a hit. The chorus of the lyrics went thus:
“This land is your land, and this land is my land
From California to the New York island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me”
A special stanza of the song was:
“There was a big, high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said ‘Private Property’
But on the backside, it didn't say nothing
This land was made for you and me.”
The song is essentially a protest song, first composed by the American folk singer Woody Guthrie in 1940. It was a critical response to Irving Berlin's ‘God Bless America’ Its melody is based on a Carter Family tune called ‘When the World's on Fire’. The song was a hit then, particularly during World War II; over the years, the lyrics of the song have undergone several changes and adaptations. The essence however remains the same, “this land was made for you and me.” In 2025, it was listed at No. 11 of ‘The 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time.’ Given the context of the highly polarised and divided world we live in– this song is definitely all the more relevant today!
About a week ago, on Sunday 2 March, at the 97th Academy Awards, ‘No Other Land’ won the coveted Oscar for the Best Documentary Film. The film has been made by four Israeli and Palestinian activists (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor) and is a powerful examination of life under occupation. It is their directorial debut. They describe the film as an act of resistance on the path to justice during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
‘No Other Land’ is a portrait of a West Bank village under Israeli military occupation. The documentary film gets its title from a statement by a long-time Masafer Yatta resident who says, “we have no other land. It is our land. That is why we suffer for it.” For the ones who have seen this path-breaking documentary. ‘No Other Land’ is a breathtakingly powerful chronicle of what it means to live with the constant threat of eviction. The film captures with heartrending detail the relentlessness of Israel’s effort to remove any trace of Palestinian presence in the West Bank. This reality is what the world painfully witnesses today and yet does not dare to address collectively!
The documentary has the friendship between Basel and Yuval as a backgrounder. Their relationship is filled with intense emotions. Basel is very anxious over the fate of his family and village, to the point of exhaustion. Yuval expresses guilt and sorrow over being unable to prevent imminent destruction or to persuade his fellow- Israelis to see reason. There is a sad but grim irony when Basel says that he has a law degree, but can only find work as a construction labourer in Israel. The manner in which the judiciary can be used to redesignate land use and thus enable unfeeling eviction policies points to a familiar playbook predicated on absolute denial of basic human rights.
In their acceptance speech, two of the film’s four directors pleaded for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist who is from Masafer Yatta, a region of the West Bank said, “About two months ago, I became a father, and my hope to my daughter [is] that she will not have to live the same life I’m living now – always fearing settlers’ violence, home demolitions and forceful displacements that my community, Masafer Yatta, is living and facing every day under the Israeli occupation.…We call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.” Adra also described the issues faced by his village, including home demolitions and displacement.
Yuval Abraham, an Israeli investigative journalist, co-director of the film said, “When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law, and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control. Israelis and Palestinians are ‘intertwined’; my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe.”

In February 2024, at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, ‘No Other Land’ won the Berlinale Documentary Award and the Panorama Audience Award for Best Documentary Film. During his acceptance speech then, Abraham criticized Israel saying, “We are standing in front of you now, me and Basel are the same age. I am Israeli; Basel is Palestinian. And in two days we will go back to a land where we are not equal. I am living under a civilian law and Basel is under military law. We live 30 minutes from one another, but I have voting rights. Basel is not having voting rights. I’m free to move where I want in this land. Basel is, like millions of Palestinians, locked in the occupied West Bank. This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality, it has to end”.
Adra chipped in saying, “It’s our first movie; since many years my community, my family has been filming our community being erased by this brutal occupation. I am here celebrating the award, but also very hard for me to celebrate when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza. Masafer Yatta, my community, is being also razed by Israeli bulldozers. I ask one thing: for Germany, as I am in Berlin here, to respect the U.N. calls and stop sending weapons to Israel.”
Since its release in February 2024, the documentary has won numerous awards and accolades from all over the world. However, for obvious reasons it has not been screened in India. Even its entry to certain Film Festivals here, has been inexplicably cancelled. The fascist regime which rules the country today will not allow Freedom of Speech and Expression to its citizens. A film which shows the Israeli regime in poor light, is in India, a certain ‘no-no’! Even in the United States, the film has failed to find a distributor because it reveals truths that Americans should not see! When the film won the Oscar, it was natural that some Israelis were outraged, using every trick in the book to denigrate the directors of the film and the cast.
‘No Other Land’ is about divisiveness and discrimination, about demonization and denigration, about demolition and destruction! At the receiving end are the Palestinian people – the ‘other’! It is not without reason that Pope Francis has been praying every single day for them and regularly speaking to those affected in Gaza. It is a film which is a powerful manifestation of the terrible reality faced by millions all over the world. Here in India, the Kuki-zo people of Manipur and the minorities (particularly Muslims and Christians) have to face this reality daily!
As the bull-dozers, continue to go on rampage demolishing and destroying the lives and homes of the vulnerable, it is time that the fascist and dictatorial rulers of the world realise that “this land was made for you and me” and wake up to the statement by the Masafer Yatta resident “we have no other land. It is our land. That is why we suffer for it.”  Yes, there is No Other Land!
---
 Fr. Cedric Prakash SJ is a human rights, reconciliation and peace activist/ writer

Comments

Post a Comment

TRENDING

Modi’s Israel visit strengthened Pakistan’s hand in US–Iran truce: Ex-Indian diplomat

By Jag Jivan   M. K. Bhadrakumar , a career diplomat with three decades of service in postings across the former Soviet Union, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, and Turkey, has warned that the current truce in the US–Iran war is “fragile and ridden with contradictions.” Writing in his blog India Punchline , Bhadrakumar argues that while Pakistan has emerged as a surprising broker of dialogue, the durability of the ceasefire remains uncertain.
Post a Comment
»

Manufacturing, services: India's low-skill, middle-skill labour remains underemployed

By Francis Kuriakose* The Indian economy was in a state of deceleration well before Covid-19 made its impact in early 2020. This can be inferred from the declining trends of four important macroeconomic variables that indicate the health of the economy in the last quarter of 2019.
Post a Comment
»

Incarceration of Prof Saibaba 'revives' the question: What is crime, who is criminal?

By Kunal Pant* In 2016, a Supreme Court Judge asked the state of Maharashtra, “Do you want to extract a pound of flesh?” The statement was directed against the state for contesting the bail plea of Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba. Saibaba was arrested in 2014, a justification for which was to prevent him from committing what the police called “anti-national activities.”
Post a Comment
»

Why Indo-Pak relations have been on 'knife’s edge' , hostilities may remain for long

By Utkarsh Bajpai*  The past few decades have seen strides being made in all aspects of life – from sticks and stones to weaponry. The extreme case of this phenomenon has been nuclear weapons. The menace caused by nuclear weapons in the past is unforgettable. Images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from 1945 come to mind, after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the cities.
Post a Comment
»

Food security? Gujarat govt puts more than 5 lakh ration cards in the 'silent' category

By Pankti Jog* A new statistical report uploaded by the Gujarat government on the national food security portal shows that ensuring food security for the marginalized community is still not a priority of the state. The statistical report, uploaded on December 24, highlights many weaknesses in implementing the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in state.
Post a Comment
»

The soundtrack of resistance: How 'Sada Sada Ya Nabi' is fueling the Iran war

​ By Syed Ali Mujtaba*  ​The Persian track “ Sada Sada Ya Nabi ye ” by Hossein Sotoodeh has taken the world by storm. This viral media has cut across linguistic barriers to achieve cult status, reaching over 10 million views. The electrifying music and passionate rendition by the Iranian singer have resonated across the globe, particularly as the high-intensity military conflict involving Iran entered its second month in March 2026.
Post a Comment
»

Lata Mangeshkar, a Dalit from Devdasi family, 'refused to sing a song' about Ambedkar

By Pramod Ranjan*  An artist is known and respected for her art. But she is equally, or even more so known and respected for her social concerns. An artist's social concerns or in other words, her worldview, give a direction and purpose to her art. History remembers only such artists whose social concerns are deep, reasoned and of durable importance. Lata Mangeshkar (28 September 1929 – 6 February 2022) was a celebrated playback singer of the Hindi film industry. She was the uncrowned queen of Indian music for over seven decades. Her popularity was unmatched. Her songs were heard and admired not only in India but also in Pakistan, Bangladesh and many other South Asian countries. In this article, we will focus on her social concerns. Lata lived for 92 long years. Music ran in her blood. Her father also belonged to the world of music. Her two sisters, Asha Bhonsle and Usha Mangeshkar, are well-known singers. Lata might have been born in Indore but the blood of a famous Devdasi family...
2 comments
»

'Batteries now cheap enough for solar to meet India's 90% demand': Expert quotes Ember study

By A Representative   Shankar Sharma, Power & Climate Policy Analyst, has urged India’s top policymakers to reconsider the financial and ecological implications of the country’s energy transition strategy in light of recent global developments. In a letter dated April 10, 2026, addressed to the Union Ministers of Finance, Power, New & Renewable Energy, Environment, Forest & Climate Change, and the Vice Chair of NITI Aayog, with a copy to the Prime Minister, Sharma highlighted concerns over India’s ambitious plans for coal gasification and the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR).
Post a Comment
»

Labour unrest in Manesar trigger tensions: Recently enacted labour codes blamed

By A Representative   A civil rights coalition has expressed concern over recent developments in the industrial hub of Manesar in Haryana, where a series of labour actions and police responses have drawn attention. A statement, released by the Campaign Against State Repression (CASR), said it stood in solidarity with workers in IMT Manesar and other parts of the country, while also alleging instances of police excess during ongoing unrest.
Post a Comment
»