05 ISSUE IV
MARCH 2025
MARCH 2025
No Other Voice
The Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land” broke barriers, but did it also reinforce the painful reality that Palestinian voices are only heard when echoed by the oppressor?
By Parker Norman
The film “No Other Land” isn’t just a documentary, it’s a gut punch. A raw, unfiltered look at what it means to live under occupation, the film pulls the viewer straight into the heart of Masafer Yatta, a collection of nineteen small Palestinian settlements in Hebron in the West Bank that has been under constant threat. Directed by Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal, and Rachel Szor, it follows Adra, a Palestinian journalist, a lawyer, an activist, and, most importantly, someone who has lived this reality every single day. Through his lens, one doesn't just watch the Israeli military demolish homes; it is the weight of what it means to have your existence questioned, to fight for the right to stay on land that has been yours for generations.
The timing of No Other Land’s release and success is also crucial. It came at a time when global attention was overwhelmingly focused on Gaza, despite the fact that the West Bank has also been enduring continuous settler violence, arrests, land confiscation, and military aggression. The suffering of Palestinians in the West Bank has never stopped, yet it often remains in the shadows of media coverage. This documentary shifted the spotlight, even if momentarily, toward an area that rarely gets the same urgency in global discussions. More than anything else, “No Other Land” suggests the idea of co-resistance of Palestinians and Israelis standing together not as equals, but as partners in the fight against occupation, with a shared refusal to accept the Israeli state's violent status quo.
The backlash was inevitable. No sooner had “No Other Land” won the Academy Award than the firestorm of criticism ignited. Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar labeled the film as "defamation" and warned theaters in Israel against screening it. Israeli media decried it as "propaganda" and "worse than a lie." The directors faced a barrage of vitriol online. This reaction was, in many ways, predictable. The pattern of backlash against Palestinian narratives, especially those that challenge the dominant discourse, has played out repeatedly, making it unsurprising that No Other Land faced immediate condemnation and censorship attempts.
On the pro-Palestinian side, voices emerged denouncing the film not for its content but for what it represented. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) issued a statement claiming the documentary "certainly violates" its anti-normalization guidelines. Some critics pointed to the presence of Yuval Abraham, a Jewish Israeli, standing alongside Basel Adra, a Palestinian, on a global stage as an act of normalization. The other two co-directors, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor are Palestinian and Jewish Israeli, respectively. However, this image represents something more than coexistence, it highlights the troubling reality that Palestinian suffering is still not seen as legitimate unless accompanied by the voice of the oppressor. It reinforced the legacy of Palestinians needing Israeli validation to be heard, rather than being recognized for their own voices and lived experiences.
The occupation is not a conflict between two equal sides, it is a system of apartheid, colonization, and oppression. The presence of an Israeli voice in the documentary, no matter how well-intentioned, reinforces a long-standing legacy: that Palestinian suffering is only acknowledged when validated by the oppressor’s voice. It is a bitter truth, made all the more painful in 2025, after decades of documented Palestinian resistance, evidence of war crimes, and undeniable realities of mass displacement, arrests, home demolitions, and systematic discrimination. Yet, it is still the case that the world listens only when an Israeli speaks.
This is not just theory, it is history. Since 2003, 16 Palestinian media works have been submitted to the Academy Awards. Only two have been nominated (“Paradise Now” and “Omar”), and neither have won. In 2025, From Ground Zero, a documentary film about Gaza made by a collective of Palestinian filmmakers, was shortlisted but did not make the final cut. Yet, “No Other Land”, a film featuring an Israeli voice, did. What does this say about the legitimacy of Palestinian storytelling? Why must the oppressor’s voice be the conduit for Palestinian pain to be recognized? The world has no shortage of Palestinian filmmakers, journalists, and activists who have risked and lost their lives documenting Israeli crimes. Yet, time and again, their work is ignored, dismissed, or deemed as “too political.”
At the same time, “No Other Land” undeniably deserves its win. As a documentary, it is powerful, raw, and urgent. If the goal was to send a message to the world, then it succeeded in doing so. Basel Adra masterfully leveraged the presence of an Israeli voice to break through barriers and bring visibility to the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Masafer Yatta. In this sense, he strategically used the mechanisms available to him, making sure the film reached as many people as possible. And perhaps, in a world where Palestinian voices are constantly silenced, this was a justified means to an end.Perhaps the Oscars, in awarding “No Other Land,” were sending a message as well, one of coexistence, of a one-state solution, of Israelis and Palestinians living as equals and ending war. Maybe they saw this film as a model of what peace could look like, a vision where both sides are acknowledged and share the stage. But in doing so, they also reinforced a familiar truth: that the white, privileged voice still dominates. Even in a film about Palestinian suffering, the world needed an Israeli to validate it. That is not equality and it is not coexistence. It is the same old system, repackaged—ensuring that real justice remains just out of reach.
Palestinians do not need Israeli validation to prove their suffering. The fact that this film needed an Israeli co-director to reach the Oscars is both a step forward and a reminder of how much further there is to go. It is a victory in that an authentic, unfiltered documentary has reached the world stage. But it is also a loss, as it highlights the enduring legacy of the white, privileged voice being the one that carries weight. It is about the painful realization that, even as Israel’s brutality is laid bare for the world to see, the colonial legacy of privileging the colonizer’s voice persists. Recognition for the Palestinian struggle should not have to come through the voice of the oppressor, and until that changes, true equality remains distant.
Parker Norman is a scholar of Middle East politics.