On Sunday, the Israeli-Palestinian co-production no other country received the award of the Academy for Best Documentary Film. Oscar – First for Palestine – has now been added to the list of 45 awards that the film won since its release 2024, including the best documentary at the 2024 European Film Awards, the Berlin Film Festival 2024 and the Gotham 2024 award.
The feature received a wide critique and glowing five -star reviews in international media. It is reviewed around the world and has consistently sold out in independent projections in the United States. Yet, no American distributor would pick it up to show it across the country. The only reason for this is his theme: Palestine.
The documentary is followed by the lives of Palestinian communities in Masafer Yatti, an area near Hebron on the southern occupied west coast, which the Israeli army declared a “military zone”. Under this excuse, Israeli troops and illegal settlers regularly harass their residents and destroy their houses, making them homeless. The story was told through the lens of the Basel Adra, Palestinian activist, and Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist.
This raw, torturous account of the liquid crimes is something that distributors are obviously scared of the display. And this is in a country that prides itself on its constitutional guaranteed law to freedom of speech.
The fear of a distributor is a great illustration of how massive campaign is to delete Palestine in the US, influencing every aspect of public life – from education to media, to art and cinema.
Of course, Anti-Palestinian censorship is nothing new. Since 1948, Palestinian culture and history have constantly faced an attempt to delete because Israel has tried to justify their grab of the country, claiming that the Palestinian people do not exist and has no right to their country. This narrative also dominated public perceptions in Western countries that supported Israel throughout their existence – among them the United States.
The maintenance of this narrative was crucial for continuous political support.
If the US public is exposed to more information about what is happening in Palestine, if the Palestinians are humanized in the main course, if they are given a platform to tell their stories of genocide experience and apartheid, then public opinion would begin to change dramatically.
That is already. Different surveys last year showed that Americans, especially Democrats, did not agree with the policy of their government about Israeli-Palestini. Most Democrats supported the truce in Gaza when President Joe Biden’s administration refused to support. This attitude ultimately cost Kamala Harris countless votes in the presidential election.
A significant change in public opinion on Israel-Palestini would make it difficult for the US Congress to maintain multi-million dollar financing of Israeli military and political support to occupation and apartheid.
Because of this, a deletion campaign must be held – which was led by Israel himself – against Palestinian voices, stories and history.
But the challenges that no other country has experienced since its release is not just another clear case of anti-Palestinian censorship.
The film shared the storytelling between Palestinian and Israel. The documentary not only hears the Adra’s voice that speaks of what is happening in Palestine, but also to Abraham.
As the latter acknowledged during the speech about accepting the award on the Oscars: “Together, our voices are stronger.” Indeed, if the movie was completely Palestinian, he would be labeled biased and struggled to draw the same level of global attention. Having the Israeli co-director probably opened a door, but it also made it “more dangerous”.
In his speech, Abraham said, “When I look at the base, I see my brother, but we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free by civil law, but Basel must live according to military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control. There is a different path. The political solution without ethnic superiority.”
The idea of Israel like Abraham expressing the opposition of Aparthey and the occupation is obviously not tolerated. It does not correspond to the main narrative that Israel is a moral compass and that all Palestinians want only the design of all Jews.
There are many Jewish Americans who share Abraham’s attitudes and who have declared themselves against Israel. Not only did the Israeli supporters mark them as the “self-detriment of Jews”, but they were harassed, censored, accused of anti-Semitism, and even arrested during demonstrations.
Such attacks under the guise of “suppression of anti -Semitism” and “out of care for Jewish security” have actually made many Jewish people insecure.
Abraham himself became “insecure and undesirable” in Germany – the country itself that presented the reason for the protection of Israel and the Jewish people – after the speech about accepting the award at the Berlin Film Festival last year.
German politicians rushed to mark their speech with “anti -Semitic”, while the website of the City of Berlin described no other country as “exposure to anti -Semitic tendencies”.
Like the US, Germany has only doubled to Israel’s support from the beginning of her genocidal campaign in Gaza. In this way, both countries, like other Western supporters of Israel, became obstacles to peace.
Abraham alluded to that point during his speech about accepting, saying that it was “an external policy that helps block the path to peace.
Despite all the challenges he faced, no other country has achieved remarkable success. Hoping to still reach a wider audience in the United States, the filmmakers have opted for self-decision in selected theaters. To find out where the movie shows you can visit its website.
No other country is a powerful movie that Americans have to see. As Adra pointed out in a recent interview with democracy, we possess responsibility. Our tax money is funded by the destruction of his community, which accelerated only last year.
A few weeks before the Oscar win, Adra wrote on social networks: “Anyone who took care of any other country should take care of what’s actually happening on Earth … Masafer Yatta disappears before my eyes.”
Americans have to take measures.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeere.
