Earlier this month, Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner introduced a resolution threatening to cancel the O Cinema’s lease. The theater’s crime? Showing No Other Land, a documentary about the Israeli occupation of Palestinian villages in the West Bank.
About a week after the film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Meiner condemned it as “a false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people that is not consistent with the values of our City and residents.” Meiner also wrote:
“The film director’s comments at the Oscars prove the antisemitic nature of the film using Jew-hatred propaganda and lies such as ‘ethnic cleansing.’ Unfortunately, Jews for thousands of years have heard this antisemitic rhetoric; I am just surprised that O Cinema, utilizing Miami Beach taxpayer funding, would willingly disseminate such hateful propaganda.”
To its shame, the O Cinema initially agreed to remove the film from its programming. A day later, however, the theater reversed course, claiming that its earlier response was “made under duress” and citing its “fundamental belief that every voice deserves to be heard.” Meiner withdrew his resolution after five city commissioners stated their opposition and said he would instead focus on encouraging the cinema to show films that reflect differing perspectives on the occupation.
Many libertarians would argue that no cultural institution should receive taxpayer funding, especially when such funding will inevitably be used to promote viewpoints that some segments of the taxpaying public will disagree with. That argument would hold water if Meiner’s opposition were rooted in a belief that taxpayer-funded entities should not be permitted to exhibit any documentaries that contain politically sensitive content. Unfortunately, Meiner only appears to care about profligate government expenditures when they manage to inconvenience Israel.
Case in point, Meiner, who was first elected to the Miami Beach City Commission in 2019, did not express any reservations when the O Cinema showed Plan C, a pro-abortion documentary, and invited the film’s director for a post-screening discussion. Surely, Miami Beach’s taxpayer base includes a sizable number of pro-life voters who might object to such programming. Why is Meiner’s outrage reserved exclusively for a documentary that paints a foreign country in a negative light?
The pro-Israel movement’s efforts to censor No Other Land should not come as a surprise. The film has been facing pushback since it first premiered in early 2024. Last February, when co-directors Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra accepted the Documentary Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, Abraham, an Israeli Jew, remarked on the Israeli government’s apartheid-style treatment of Palestinians like Adra:
“I am under civilian law; Basel is under military law. We live 30 minutes from one another but I have voting rights. Basel does not have voting rights. I am free to move where I want in this land. Basel, like millions of Palestinians, is locked in the occupied West Bank.”
Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner responded to Abraham’s speech by tweeting, “Anti-Semitism has no place in Berlin, and that also applies to the art scene.” German Minister of Culture Claudia Roth claimed that Abraham and Adra’s speeches were “shockingly one-sided and characterised by deep hatred of Israel.” Ironically, both Wegner and Roth could be seen applauding the speech during the actual ceremony.
Three weeks after winning an Oscar, No Other Land has yet to find a distributor in the United States. In fact, the film has never played at more than 150 theaters at any one time. Vulture film critic Bilge Ebiri provided this amusing commentary on the efforts to deny the film an audience: “Somehow—somehow!—a documentary about Israel’s attempts to extinguish the West Bank village of Masafer Yatta couldn’t get picked up, despite mountains of awards and endless festival appearances.”
While accepting the Academy Award for Best Documentary, Abraham offered the following reflection:
“We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger. We see each other and the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end, and the Israeli hostage brutally taken in the crime of October 7, which must be freed.
There is a different path, a political solution. I have to say, as I am here. I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path. Why? Can’t you see we are intertwined? Can’t you see that my people will be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe?”
Only time will tell if the U.S.-backed Israeli regime will ever end its war on Palestinian civilians. Regardless, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution does not come with an Israel exception. The fact that a government official is willing to marshal his power to censor speech that is critical of a foreign country, all while ignoring the use of taxpayer funds to advance controversial perspectives on domestic issues, is highly illuminating. More than anything, it reveals just how much influence the pro-Israel lobby wields over American politicians. No matter how strong the lobby appears, its true power is probably greater than even the most cynical among us can imagine.
Just last week, Yuval Abraham reported that Hamdan Ballal, the film’s other Palestinian co-director, was “lynched” by a group of Israeli settlers who attacked his home in the West Bank. He was subsequently removed from an ambulance by the IDF and spent a night being beaten by Israeli soldiers, who released him the next day.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released an extraordinarily vague and spineless statement in response to Ballal’s assault and detention, one which failed to even mention him by name. By contrast, back in October 2011, months before that year’s ceremony, the Academy had issued a forceful condemnation of the Iranian government’s treatment of filmmaker Jafar Panahi and his peers. Hundreds of members responded to the Academy’s non-statement with their own letter decrying both the Israeli attack on Ballal and the awards body’s failure to defend one of its recent honorees.
According to Ballal, the Israeli soldiers detaining him referenced his Oscar win, suggesting that his assault and imprisonment were a direct consequence of his work documenting the occupation. The cruel circumstances surrounding its creation all but guarantee that No Other Land is destined to become of the very few documentaries whose salience will extend beyond awards season.
