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Disclosure, I have not watched the documentary No Other Land by Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham and Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra. I have no intention of watching it either—because this is not a story about cinema or culture. It’s a story about hypocrisy. The hypocrisy of Hollywood, and the hypocrisy of two filmmakers—Israeli and Palestinian—who embraced a singular, one-sided, slanderous, and false narrative, carrying it all the way to the Oscars.
Collaborations between Israeli and Palestinian creators are legitimate and even welcome. Given the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a joint film can, in some cases, be a positive thing. But No Other Land is clear-cut anti-Israel propaganda. That was the goal, the mission—and to their credit, the filmmakers succeeded.
One only needs to look at Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra’s journey to understand what this documentary is really about. Less than a year ago, the two participated in a film festival in Berlin that turned into a hate fest against Israel—less than a year after the October 7 massacre. The Palestinian filmmaker’s false narrative about genocide, ethnic oppression, apartheid, and Gaza’s destruction painted a picture as if Israel woke up one morning and decided to attack innocent civilians for no reason. “Israel is slaughtering my people in Gaza,” Adra declared.
But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a one-sided story. Where is Hamas in their narrative? Where is the October 7 massacre? Where are the innocent children murdered, the women raped, the elderly brutally slaughtered? The script is predictable: there is only one country in the world, Israel, that faces an endless campaign of delegitimization, and nothing fuels that campaign better than a film co-produced by Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers.
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Particularly infuriating is the behavior of Yuval Abraham at that same Berlin festival. His Palestinian partner’s statements were expected, but Abraham also took the stage to denounce Israel’s “apartheid regime” and describe his Palestinian co-director as “imprisoned” in the territories—even though Adra moves freely around the world. At no point did Abraham mention the horrors of October 7 or the hundreds of hostages subjected to unimaginable atrocities in Hamas tunnels.
At the time, I checked his X account and found countless posts about Israel’s so-called "atrocities" in Gaza. Not a single word about October 7. Not a single mention of the hostages. After all, why ruin the anti-Israel atmosphere of a hate festival with a minor detail about the massacre of Israeli civilians?
Yuval KarniAnd last night, once again, Yuval Abraham showed no courage in telling the Oscar audience—or the millions watching worldwide—the full, complex truth about Israel. He did not utter the word “Hamas.” The word “terror” never crossed his lips. He mentioned the hostages only in passing. Instead, he opened his acceptance speech with the “horrific destruction of Gaza.”
This was no accident. The two filmmakers knew exactly when they would receive their round of applause—when they spoke of Palestinian suffering and “genocide.” Because neither they—nor large parts of Hollywood and the American film academy—care about facts or the full story. Their minds have been thoroughly washed with anti-Israel hatred.