{"id":792,"date":"2025-02-28T16:53:39","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T16:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/ipra\/?p=792"},"modified":"2025-03-14T21:48:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T21:48:17","slug":"no-other-land-lessons-survival-solidarity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/ipra\/2025\/02\/no-other-land-lessons-survival-solidarity\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons on survival and solidarity from \u2018No Other Land\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In \u201cnormal\u201d times, bulldozers are vehicles designed to assist construction sites. Bulldozers are not primarily instruments of death and genocide. In the Academy-award nominated best feature documentary film \u201cNo Other Land<\/a>\u201d, however, the bulldozer is an instrument of horror and evil.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cNo Other Land\u201d is the story of contemporary Masafer Yatta, a collection of 19 hamlets and communities in the southern region of Palestine, near Hebron in what is now the West Bank. Recognized as inhabited Palestinian land since at least the late 1800s, the area has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, under particular attack since the 1980s, and an especially contested site over the past decade. The Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF, under the pretext that this land is now a military training area, bulldozes homes, schools and every sign of life. The Palestinian families who have been rooted there for generations argue that there is no other land for them to go to; it is almost impossible to obtain permits to build and live anywhere near their traditional villages. The Palestinians rebuild; the Israeli army re-bulldozes. Such is the cycle of life, and \u2014 as the documentary poignantly reveals \u2014 of unnecessary and bellicose death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of us remember the settlement area in South Africa\u2019s Western Cape called Crossroads<\/a>, which is now one of Greater Cape Town\u2019s largest townships. In the 1980s, as the anti-apartheid movement was growing by leaps and bounds, both within South Africa and internationally, Crossroads came to international attention when what was seen as a temporary area was flattened by bulldozer despite outcries from the United Democratic Front and mainstream church and human rights groups. The people of Crossroads rebuilt. The South African Defense Forces re-bulldozed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cycle continued in an unmistaken fashion, jarring to anyone involved in those days and viewing this modern film, which is written, directed, and expertly edited by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor. Some of us remember Rachel Corrie<\/a>, a U.S. student activist and Christian. Along with her secular Jewish anti-Zionist Israeli professor<\/a>, Corrie helped lead an International Solidarity Movement delegation to Israel\/Palestine in 2003. She was killed by an Israeli bulldozer that ran her over when she was trying to block their demolition efforts. And now, IDF bulldozers have become a symbol of death in Lebanon<\/a> and elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many important differences between the South African situation then and the Palestinian situation today.  But there are some striking similarities as well. Simple acts of steadfastness and survival as methods of resistance and mobilization are among the inspiring parallels. But there is another ripple from the past to the future, perhaps most important for an international audience. In the middle of Crossroads was a medical clinic, a living testimony to building healthy, creative alternatives in the midst of racism, settler colonialism and military might. Like the building around it, the clinic was destroyed on several occasions and rebuilt by the community and their supporters. A key component of the Crossroads clinic was its doctor, Ivan Toms<\/a>. In addition to being a well-respected physician, Toms was also a leader of the End Conscription Campaign \u2014 dedicated to support those drafted into South Africa\u2019s military service who refused to join and fight their neighbors. Toms, you see, was white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the middle of the sometimes-precarious filming of Palestinian demonstrations, Israeli attacks and late-night rebuilding, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham enters the scene. By the end of the movie, one has not only been educated through documentary filmmaking but witness to what often feels like a traditional \u201cbuddy movie\u201d as Basel Adra and Abraham become like brothers in more ways than one. The work to tell the story of \u2014 and to safeguard and empower \u2014 the people of Masafer Yatta becomes a joint project. The responsibility, and contradictions, of the privileged Israeli in the middle of a violent, often brutal, imperial occupation are explored with greater sensitivity than many books, articles and other reports of contemporary Palestine display.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Ivan Toms in Crossroads, Yuval Abraham is in no way the \u201chero\u201d or the center of the story. But the potential and powerful dynamic of alliance-building and solidarity are not unimportant side-stories either. In the growing consciousness of Israeli society, like white South Africa before them, there is a window, however small, of strategic hope and possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most significant hope for Palestine is the continued and diversified resistance of its own people. And, for the international community, solidarity with Palestine has to mean increased support for this resistance \u2014 and a hoped-for future that goes beyond the neoliberal transitions that saw the end of political apartheid in South African alongside the strengthening of economic apartheid. A growing number of Jews \u2014 Israeli and otherwise \u2014 against genocide, occupation and the ever-expanding Zionist project, must be an important element of this resistance. They\/we must be in favor of Palestinian human rights, freedom and liberation, under the leadership of the Palestinians, as Yuval is clearly under Basel\u2019s leadership on this land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our crossroads today centers around growing that international consciousness and concrete solidarity, so that \u201cnever again\u201d genocide becomes more than politicized, one-sided rhetoric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interesting perhaps simple twist of fate, this year\u2019s Oscars has many notable cues and clues. In competition with \u201cNo Other Land\u201d is \u201cSoundtrack to a Coup d\u2019Etat<\/a>,\u201d the extraordinary story of resistance to French colonialism in Africa and support for Patrice Lumumba and the Pan African movements of the 1960s. In the Best Original Screenplay category are two Holocaust-related films, \u201cThe Brutalist<\/a>\u201d and \u201cA Real Pain<\/a>\u201d \u2014 two starkly different films, both centered on Jewish survivors\/descendants of Nazi genocide and fascism. The less celebrated and nominated of the two, \u201cA Real Pain,\u201d portrays in beautiful lyricism the legacy role of people of Jewish descent today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a world of Christian Peacemaker Teams<\/a> (recently renamed \u201cCommunity\u201d Peacemakers), the long-dedicated institution-building of direct, on-the-ground partnership, accompaniment, and solidarity with grassroots Palestinian communities has been vital but small. Perhaps now is a time for greater explicitly Jewish Peacemaker Teams, donning large yellow \u201cJude\u201d Stars of David, as ACT-UP popularized the Nazi pink triangle as a symbol of LGBT resistance. It is time for global solidarity to be as inclusive, broad, creative, joyful, culturally appropriate and militant as ever. Working under and alongside Palestinian leadership has got to mean careful listening, sensitivity and humility, as Yuval Abraham displays in \u201cNo Other Land.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n