The Current - New film explores destruction of a West Bank community

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

The award-winning documentary No Other Land tells the story of a West Bank community displaced to make way for an Israeli military firing range. Two of its directors, Palestinian Basel Adra and Israeli Yuval Abraham, discuss making the film and the struggle to have this story told in Israel and beyond.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. Since 1981, the community of Masafaryata in the occupied West Bank has been under an evacuation and demolition order. The Israeli military designated the area as a firing zone. The issue is that Palestinians live there. The documentary No Other Land is a portrait of this community's struggle to save their homes and land. The film has been getting rave reviews at film festivals around the world,

including the Toronto International Film Festival. This week, it won Best Documentary Prize at the Gotham Awards. It also picked up the Best Documentary Prize at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Yesterday, it was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, and it's also being tipped for an Oscar nomination, despite the fact that you can't see this film in the United States or Canada. The team behind the film is half Palestinian, half Israeli, and two of the filmmakers join us now. Basil Adra is in the West Bank. Yuval Abraham is in Jerusalem. Hello to you

both. Hello to you. Hello, hi. Basil, describe your community for us. What does it look like? So we are like small villages are located in Masafaryata, 20 small villages in the southern occupied West Bank. Our land became under the Israeli occupation since 1967, since the Israeli military invaded the West Bank. And they improved this occupation by changing it from temporary military controlling or occupying to today to colonize our land by building settlements. And for building the settlements and military bases, Israel always looked for how to legitimize this to their own laws. Designating Masafi Yatta as a firing zone or part of it as a state land by the military law or by the Israeli law is in order to steal our land.

And the land is being used, the government says, for tank training. Is that right? So this law, they designated 20% of the West Bank as a firing zone, 14 out of 20 Masafriyata villages as a firing zone. But Yuval, who's just here, found in the state archive. Masafriyatta first was designated as a firing zone earlier in the 80s, and they said this is for the military exercises, military trainings, and very clear violating the international law where occupying country or military can't remove the people or can't even make

military trainings in the occupied territories. People still live there though, right? I mean, people are living in caves now in that area. People live in caves and tents and in houses and they face a lot of home demolitions where you see this story in no other land. Yuval, you're Israeli. Why did you want to get involved in what's happening in Masafer Yata? Well, first of all, I think that for me growing up, I didn't know about this reality of the occupation. And when you see it, it becomes very hard to justify it. And I came and I met Basil,

and I saw these house demolitions that he's speaking about, how you have really farmers, people living in their villages and anything they do, the military destroys. Their existence there is declared illegal, right? By system of laws that they cannot influence. They cannot vote. Imagine you cannot vote and some foreign military tells you

that your school and your water well and your existence is illegal because they decided so. And it seemed to me like such a huge atrocity, which I feel responsible for as an Israeli. So that's the first reason. And the second reason is that I think that as long as the Palestinian people are not free, my people, the Israeli people, will not be safe and will never be at home. You cannot control millions of people, place them under a system where they are constantly dominated by a military, where they keep on losing their lands and being pushed out of their lands year after year after

year for decades, and just continue as normal. And unfortunately, you know, and I'm saying this as an Israeli, unfortunately, states all over the world, including Canada, by the way, have done nothing to change this. I don't think Canada has even recognized Palestine as a state, which would be the most basic step possible. So for me, I think it's clear that this is extremely unjust and nobody would accept it. None of our listeners would accept being controlled by a foreign army. And it has to change. And today it's more urgent than ever. And we need a political solution. And we need leaders to step up to the moment.

When you arrived in the community, people are shocked. You're a journalist, you're there to tell this story, and somebody says to you, you're human rights Israeli? What did you make of that? There is a community of human rights organizations in Israel, which is a small community, but it exists. But today, unfortunately, and this I can say on behalf of the Israeli human rights community, we are very weak and very small. And change is not going to come from within right now. I mean, we are unable to stop the starvation of Gaza. We are unable to stop what recently Moshe Bogi Alon, a right-wing Israeli who was the head of the Israeli military in 2014,

called the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, which is still ongoing. Hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of being killed, of death, according to the UN, especially in the north. And the West Bank communities like Masafriyata are constantly being erased. The settlers became the soldiers and they're being pushed out. And we, as the human rights community in Israel, are literally begging the world to place pressure on our country. We are really begging the world. First of all, we need sanctions and we need an arms embargo and it cannot continue. You cannot continue when you see what is happening.

It's not to our benefit as Israelis. And of course, it's not for the benefit of the Palestinian people who are being killed. We need a radical change of foreign policy all over the world so we can move to a place where the Palestinians are free from occupation and foreign control and supremacy, and both the Israelis and the Palestinians can have rights and self-determination and statehood. And if there is no change, I talk to many people in the human rights community in Israel, It will not come from within, not in the next few years. And it's very, very urgent. Basil, why did you want to document what was happening in your community? You say in the film,

you started filming when we started to end. Why did you want to document this? It's very important to film and to have the evidence. We as Palestinians see how the world behaves with us. We see how the leaders in the Western world keep calling Israel the only democracy in the Middle East. And Israel keeps also using its propaganda and exploring itself and its system as the only democracy in the Middle East. But we wanted to show the truth and the status quo that we are living in under this brutal occupation that doesn't hesitate or doesn't like losing any moment to approach us from our homeland by using the machines and using the money from the US, from Canada, from other countries for the weapons, for the settlements, for the colonizing projects to approach us from our homeland.

And we wanted to put this evidence in front of their eyes and show them that the apartheid that they are trying to deny, it's not true. The apartheid exists. And we wanted this to change. This is the goal beyond that. We wanted the people to know what's going on to us. And this can't continue like that.

It should change. Yuval, how do you describe what the average Israeli citizen understands about what's happening to people like Basel in communities like this? Because the film shows homes being bulldozed. There are also members of the community who are beaten by settler groups, by Israeli forces. A man is shot point-blank and left paralyzed after he tries to stop his home from being bulldozed. How would you describe how people in Israel understand what's happening in a community like this? Again, I don't want to generalize, but the majority of people in Israel, of the Jewish Israelis,

because the Israeli society has Palestinians as well, who I think would understand more, but I think the majority of Jewish Israelis don't understand. They don't understand because, for two reasons, I think the majority of Jewish Israelis don't understand. They don't understand because for two reasons, I think. First of all, when you're tasked with enforcing a military occupation, you know, military service is mandatory in Israel, and people for decades have been tasked with enforcing, you know, men and women, with enforcing this regime of control. You justify it in your own mind when you are committing.

It's very hard to, you know, to look at an individual through the barrel of a gun for decades and not to justify it for yourself. And that's, I think, one justification that will happen. The second thing, we don't, I mean, we don't see. We don't, nobody, I mean, the media does not report about it. The mainstream media has not shown the Israeli society an image coming out of Gaza that is not the images, the military films from the drones and from the military spokesperson's unit. So there is a very big bubble and that empowers obviously the Israeli right, which is able to frame everything as this total security issue.

There is never any context. There is never any talk today about a political solution, about how maybe we can recalibrate the relations between Israelis and Palestinians, not to be based on control and on occupation, but on some form of equality between the two people. That is today gone. I mean, that is a discourse that maybe existed in the of equality between the two people. That is today gone. I mean, that is a discourse that maybe existed in the Israeli society in the 90s, I think largely due to Netanyahu's policies, but not only him.

Any talk of the occupation does not happen. You go on Israeli television programs and you're attacked, saying that people say that you are against Jewish people for what you're reporting. Yeah, I mean, first of all, I used to be invited to some Israeli TV channels. Since October 7th, you know, the space for that has narrowed even further. So I'm less invited today. But I do get attacked by some Israelis who claim that I'm against Israelis or against Jewish people. Again, I think that the two people are connected. And I think that the security of my people is

fundamentally rooted in the security of the Palestinian people. And the idea that, you know, you can kill 17,000 children and somehow do that in the name of security is not only false, it's also completely illogical and wrong and atrocious. And I think realizing that for me, maybe it sounds basic to some people, but really this is a fundamental realization. Like we are connected to one another and what we do to the other side echoes back to us. And I just don't think it's sustainable

to continue in the way that what we are doing. Basil, what do you want Israelis to understand about your community? To be honest, I don't think Israelis understand what they are doing to us. I hope that they will stop what they are doing to us and they stop supporting their military by committing this to us. I think most of the Israelis understand what's going on in Gaza and the West Bank, and they should not support it. They should reject it. The filming for this documentary wrapped up right before the atrocities on the 7th of October of last year. How do you think, Basil, that impacts the ability of this film to be seen by audiences? It doesn't have a distributor.

It's won awards, was well-received at the film festival in Toronto, just won a big award in New York, and yet it does not have a distributor. How do you think what happened on the 7th of October has shaped the reception to it? Well, it's sad that the movie doesn't have a distributor in the U.S. because the movies have been received well at festivals. And this week we won the Gotham Award and, you know, Bill & Ali and IDFA.

Important awards, also many awards from other festivals. And the movie found the distributors. It was a challenge to find also in Germany, but in the end of the day we found someone. But it's sad that in the U.S. still nobody, it's like people need to be brave because the movie is our work between me and Yuval and others, people like us in our circle,

really work and begging the world to change what's going on. And the only change can come from outside, from the U.S. and from Europe and from Canada, that they should take a position. And we worked all these years. We really wanted to achieve a change before arriving at the days like October 7th, sadly,

that we arrived in that moment. And since 14 months, like witnessing a genocide, it doesn't stop. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs.

And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Yuval, how do you think the past year, you talked about what happens when you go, or used to go on Israeli television, and now you can't do that in your own country.

How do you think what happened over the past year? 1,200 Israelis killed, hostages still held in Gaza. How has that changed how Israelis think about Palestinians and whether they are receptive at all to the ideas that are presented in a film like this? is that are presented in a film like this? So look, generally speaking, when historically, when faced with atrocities committed against Israeli civilians, like October 7th, like the hostages that need to be released, the society moves to the right and entrenches even further the military occupation and apartheid and commits atrocities against Palestinians, which then causes the Palestinian society to move further to the right. I mean, you spoke rightfully about the atrocities of October 7th, and you mentioned the killed Israeli children and civilians.

But I wonder, I mean, would you feel as free to use this word when referring to Gaza, where 400 times as many children were killed? And if the unjustifiable killing of so many Israeli civilians pushed the Israeli society so much to the right, then what is the killing of tens of thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians that has been going on for months and months doing to the Palestinian society? I ask myself. So I think that our film is important because it looks for a way out of this. Basel spoke to this just now. I mean, we don't want to see civilians being killed and slaughtered. And the way to prevent that, the way to stabilize the relations between Israelis and Palestinians

has to be a political solution. And I ask myself again, I'm sorry to bring this up again, because this is not something new. Like, why did we have to reach to this point to have the world talking about it? And why still Canada and the United States have not recognized even Palestine as a state? I mean, the kind of political solution that we are talking about is one that is based on the Palestinians deserve to be free and that the Palestinians and the Israelis can both have their rights and statehood and what they need. But when you are preventing that, and this is maybe the most important point, when you have blocked every single path for Palestinian freedom of occupation, which is what any person would want, when you block the legal path, when the U.S.

vetoes the U.N. Security Council, when the Palestinian human rights organizations are declared terrorist organizations, when you cannot protest in the West Bank because any protest is illegal, and when Canada does not recognize Palestine as a state, when you block every single path, the likelihood of atrocities and violence, which is never justified, becomes much, much higher. So people like us on the left are really, again, asking the world to change their foreign policy so there can be a political solution. How do you understand, and this picks up on that, how do you understand the reaction and the reception to the film? I asked Basil about the lack of a distribution. The film has been shown at film festivals. When it was shown

at the Berlin Film Festival, it won the Documentary Prize, the German Minister of Culture said she was only clapping for you, not for Basel, and that there were accusations of anti-Semitism leveled against the film and its supporters. You said, to stand on German soil as the son of Holocaust survivors and call for a ceasefire, then to be labeled as anti-Semitic

is not only outrageous, it's also literally putting Jewish lives in danger. How do you understand, as an Israeli, how do you understand the reception to the film? Yeah, I mean, I think for me, you know, being in Berlin, and me and Basil both spoke about basically very, the similar way that we are speaking now in this interview, and the word anti-Semitism for me carries a lot of weight.

It carries a lot of weight because my family, as you said, was killed, much of it in the Holocaust. And also because anti-Semitism is rising today on the right and on the left. And it's a very real phenomenon that I care about. And when it's used to silence people who are criticizing Israel or criticizing the occupation or just to block our film, like as what has happened in Germany. It's not only outrageous because it's a tool to silence Palestinians and Israelis apparently who are critical of what the state of Israel is doing, but it also empties the word out of meaning. Because if you label everything as anti-Semitism all the time, then nothing is anti-Semitism.

Then the word just completely loses its meaning. And I think that it's not a coincidence that this is happening in Germany. And I think Germany completely misunderstands its responsibility towards Jewish people and Israelis. I mean, it equates support for Israelis or for Jewish people with supporting what the Israeli government

and the Israeli state have been doing, which is a prolonged occupation and apartheid. And I think it's the complete opposite. If you care about Jewish people, if you care about Israelis, if you care about international law, you have to respect it. And what the international law organs are telling us, what the ICJ told us, is that the occupation is illegal. And what the ICC told us, the International Criminal Court, is that Israeli leaders have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes alongside Hamas leaders, and they need to be arrested. And the fact that Israel is now waging a war against the organs of international law with the sometimes passive and sometimes active support of Germany

and of course the United States, I guess also Canada should terrify us because international law is important and the organs of international law were created as a result of the horrific atrocities committed because of anti-Semitism in the Second World War. Just the last point on this. I mean, you faced death threats because of this. This comes up in the film where somebody says to you,

you're on Facebook, somebody will come and pay you a visit. But you face death threats for what you've said and your involvement in this film, right? Yeah, I mean, I face, me and my family, my mom had to leave the house for a while in February.

I think it shows you the position, you know, the amount of space for criticism today in the Israeli society, which is significantly narrowed after October 7th. But again, I have to say, I am today not in physical danger. Like, I think, thinking of my, I'm talking to you now from Jerusalem, Basel is in Masafariyata in the West

Bank. I am able to travel. I can go to my house. I don't have to sleep every night with my shoes on because I'm afraid that the military will invade and I will have to run. And this is how Basel has to live. So, again, I understand I have a lot of privilege also as a Jewish Israeli. And I don't feel I am now a victim of this. I will continue together with Basel, together with other Palestinians and Israelis who see a different kind of future based on international law and justice and equality. We will continue this struggle. Basel, at one point in the film, you tell Yuval to get used to failing,

that he shouldn't expect to solve what's happening to your community in a few days' time. How do you think about the scope of time when it comes to your fight in your community? I think the same, sadly. Especially with Trump being elected today, we're in very, like, the future is a bit clear that there's going to be more nightmare than what we are living in today, especially the people who's pointing and putting in positions, saying there is no such a thing called West Bank, and this is not a settlement, it is Jewish neighborhoods here.

So this is, like, completely, like, supporting to ethnic cleansing us from our homes and to build and to expand the settlements and the outposts. We wish we could speak about optimistic and positively about what's going on. But as you as you can see in the news, we're just living in very, very harsh days. I don't know. I don't know what we can hope for our future. I don't know what we can hope for our future. I don't know what we can, what really exactly would happen. How do you see your friendship, your collaborators, but you're also friends, Pazal? And I just wonder, and this is a big part of the film,

a Palestinian and Israeli working together and that they become friends and collaborators. How do you, how do you see how the last year has impacted your own friendship? From the beginning, I think we were very clear and we see each other as human beings and as equal human beings and we should live in equal situation and nobody controls the other people. nobody controls the other people. I mean, this is not unique, but unfortunately the people like us, our other

friends in this circle, we are powerless. The problem is we are begging the people with power to do their own job and their own action to stop this because we are powerless. We don't have power to change this and we wish we could have the power to change what's going on and to end all this violence and to live equal uh in this land this is friendship and this

relationship between israeli and palestinian can't give the people outside false hope the people have responsibility this is their money and their countries that empowering netanyahu and his governments and this is should not go on. This should stop. The occupation should end and the political solution should be achieved. And only when these governments start to take positions and actions in order to achieve this political change. Yuval, what about for you?

How do you see your friendship with Basel after this last year? No, I have to say I agree with every word Basel said, and not only because we are friends, because I think it's very wise politically. And it recognizes some of the fundamental roots of the violence. And I think our understanding, our shared values held us together and are holding us together and I feel now even more strongly it's not as if because an Israeli was murdered

or because a Palestinian was murdered that I am suddenly going to be angry at Basel on the contrary we were warning against this the entire human rights community in Palestine and in Israel was warning that if we don't end the occupation, if there is no political solution, then we will reach where we are reaching. And again, it's not to justify any kind of violence and every person has agency over their actions.

But we were warning exactly against this. And it just makes me more, more, more really hard, heartbreaking. Like I cried so much over this past year, losing people, friends that both, both Israelis and Palestinians and people that I knew. And, and, and, and I'm really angry that, that we had to reach this point and that the world is still not taking the, the, the action that is needed to take to, to begin changing the change that we need. What do you hope a film like this and the work that you have done with Yuval, what's that message that it could send to other people about recalibrating that relationship and finding some degree of peace and justice, do you think?

I hope at least we will succeed and manage to change individuals around the world in Canada, in the US, in Europe. least we will we will succeed and manage to to change individuals around the world in canada in the us and in europe individuals would see the truth of what's going on and they will join our our struggle and solidarity i mean to protest to stress on their governments to do the right thing i hope people would understand and not just after understanding would would take action because this movie is kind of call to action for the people, for the audience who would see it, not to remain silent. Because not just, again, not a documentary that's showing something in the past,

but showing a reality that's going on. Yuval, what about for you? You say in the film it would be nice to have stability, and then Basil could come and visit you. Do you think that is going to happen? Do you think that relationship will be recalibrated? I don't know. Now I'm very much afraid.

I think we're in a situation of urgency where hundreds of thousands of people are going to perhaps die in Gaza. I mean, that's what's at stake right now. So these visions that we had about recalibrating and about whatever you want to call it, a two-state solution, a confederation, a position where the occupation ends

and there is some kind of equality. I mean, that's further and further away. Right now, we're speaking about people who are being starved to death and are not receiving food and water. And every day we have another 100 people killed. Right now, it's about survival. It's not even about, you even about having a political solution.

That's so much further away. I think we should all be focused on that right now. That is the most urgent thing. It's a very powerful film. I'm glad to talk to you both about it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham are part of the team behind the documentary No Other Land. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.