By JODY BENSON
Los Alamos
The Los Alamos Unitarian Church presented on March 25 the Academy Award winning documentary, No Other Land, directed by two Palestinians and two Israelis, about the systematic destruction of the villages in Masafer Yatta in the southern Occupied West Bank of Palestine.
This film is not about Gaza or Hamas. It is about the West Bank. There is no Hamas in the West Bank. People of the West Bank did not commit the 10-7 terror attack on the Nova Music Festival.
No Other Land is a video journal. Young Palestinian activist Basel Andra has been recording life in his area since he was seven years old. It’s poignant with scenes of family where moms and dads try to create an ordinary home life, cooking, eating together, running a business, keeping watch over the flocks, telling kids to get off their devices, teaching little ones to talk (for the littlest boy, everything is “daa!”), inviting strangers for a meal, holding close a sobbing little girl while telling her everything will be alright as Israeli soldiers bulldoze the family home.
No Other Land is about resilience and courage as families gather belongings, their chickens, goats from homes the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) bulldozed, and relocate into caves only to sneak out at night when the IDF isn’t around to stop them, to rebuild those homes and the school brick by brick. It’s inspiring to watch their courage as Palestinian Basel Andra and Israeli Yuval Abraham film what’s happening despite the humiliation and violence the IDF perpetrates daily on them and the villages.
No Other Land is tragic to watch the months-long dying of a young man shot in the neck while wrestling with the IDF for the family generator; as the school built at night by hand is yet again bulldozed; as soldiers destroy goat pens, chicken coops, and dovecotes with the animals inside; when the IDF comes to fill the village well with concrete to ensure the permanent expulsion of the people and their livestock.
No Other Land is enraging when the IDF takes the ancient land ostensibly for a firing range while shirtless young male Settlers stone and mock the villagers departing from what has been their homeland for centuries and with no other land to go to.
Before you call it antisemitic because it shows the Palestinian struggle, please remember that many US citizens called the Civil Rights Movement anti-American—and Martin Luther King Jr a filthy commie—because he organized and marched for the right of Black Americans to be seen as worthy of being recognized as human. The Civil Rights Movement is not anti-American. No Other Land is not antisemitic. Like the US Civil Rights Movement, it’s about the struggle to be recognized as human beings with human rights.
Here’s the link to the free video: https://lookmovie2.la/movies/play/30953759-no-other-land-2024