{"id":9427,"date":"2024-11-03T11:38:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-03T11:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/03\/palestinians-were-living-under-occupation-for-decades-before-the-war-a-palestinian-and-an-israeli-united-to-show-the-world-their-reality\/"},"modified":"2024-11-03T11:38:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T11:38:00","slug":"palestinians-were-living-under-occupation-for-decades-before-the-war-a-palestinian-and-an-israeli-united-to-show-the-world-their-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/03\/palestinians-were-living-under-occupation-for-decades-before-the-war-a-palestinian-and-an-israeli-united-to-show-the-world-their-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestinians were living under occupation for decades before the war. A Palestinian and an Israeli united to show the world their reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Midway through the documentary \u201cNo Other Land,\u201d journalist and activist Basel Adra recounts a <\/strong>2009 <\/strong>visit to his village by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. <\/p>\n

In a navy suit and crisp tie, surrounded by security detail and photographers, Blair walked through the village for seven minutes, Adra says in a <\/strong>voice-over. <\/p>\n

He visits the local school, Adra says. He passes by Adra\u2019s family\u2019s home. He nods <\/strong>along to something someone says off camera, the footage shows. He shakes a hand. He smiles. <\/p>\n

Months later, after Blair returns to the UK, Israel cancels the demolition orders <\/strong>held for the school and home in the street he visited, Adra says. In the mere handful of minutes, Blair accomplished what villagers had been trying to do for years. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis,\u201d Adra says, \u201cis a story about power.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cNo Other Land\u201d tells of the continued demolition of Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the Hebron mountains of the West Bank where Adra and his family still live. But as we see the demolition \u2014 the local playground torn down, his family moving their beds and other belongings into a cave, his brother shot and killed by soldiers, attacks by Jewish settlers \u2014 Adra and the rest of the filmmakers also show us a community trying to survive. <\/p>\n

Adra\u2019s filming begins in 2019 and stretches until 2023, chronicling the Israeli government\u2019s attempt to evict the villagers by force, having claimed the land for a military training facility and firing range in 1981. (During the lengthy legal battle, before the Israeli supreme court ruled in favor of demolishing homes in the villages in 2022, Israeli prosecutors argued that Palestinian residents only began squatting in the area when it was declared a firing range, after previously using the land as seasonal pasture. Residents countered, saying the IDF had blown up Palestinian homes in Masafer Yatta decades earlier, in 1966). <\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em> <\/p>\n

What motivated you to pick up the camera in the first place? Was making a documentary always the goal?<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Basel Adra<\/strong>: No, it wasn\u2019t. It was documenting. To document the things around me was the goal, and it always felt important to catch the incidents that\u2019s happening around us as evidence of the reality of what\u2019s happening. And then, after years, the guys joined, and we decided together that we want to make a movie. <\/p>\n

Yuval Abraham<\/strong>: I came here as a journalist, so documenting was part of the job. It\u2019s something that I believe in. I came into journalism out of realizing that there is so much that is not being told in the land that we live in that needs to be told. But for me, the act of documenting, whether it\u2019s by writing or by filming, always has a purpose or an audience in mind, most of the time. Whereas for Basel, it\u2019s also that, but as he said, it\u2019s also the way to survive when you\u2019re being attacked, or when your community is. <\/p>\n

You started filming this in 2019 and you wrapped it up before the events of October last year. Do you think the film has changed or taken on new meaning because of what\u2019s happened since then?<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Abraham<\/strong>: Of course, the movie meets the audience at the moment where the audience is. Now, Palestine and Israel are on the news 24\/7 for the past year. To me, the film is showing the reality on the ground before October, and it\u2019s showing essentially the decades-long occupation of Palestinians. And I think one of the reasons why we made the movie is, for me, is because \u2014 October 7 is an atrocity \u2014 but the world was not paying attention, almost at all, to the violent life that Palestinians are living under for decades before October. <\/p>\n

This adds so much urgency for me to the film right now. It\u2019s clear that, to anybody who watches our film and looks at the reality of the farmers in Masafer Yatta, living under Israeli military control is not something sustainable and it\u2019s not something just. It\u2019s not something that can continue. Me and Basel were born in the \u201890s. If we would have reached a political solution then, imagine how many more people would be alive today? And it\u2019s unfortunate that people are now talking about the need for political change only after, in a way, human beings are paying with their blood. <\/p>\n

I know with the recent escalation, you had to cut your time in the US short. How did it feel to go from touring this documentary all over the world, getting awards, etc., to zooming back home to Palestine and Israel?<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Adra<\/strong>: It\u2019s different. It\u2019s not easy to go to the festivals and succeed, and journalists talk about it, the audience wants to see it, and it\u2019s been sold out in many festivals. But coming back to the reality here, it\u2019s sad to see that the situation is going, changing to be worse than it was even before. <\/p>\n