Documentaries have the challenge of telling a story when life rarely presents a single story with a beginning, middle and end. There’s also the challenge, especially in this case, that everyone knows that the heroes are not going to be victorious in the end, given the ongoing conflict in the region. This specific struggle has been ongoing for decades and somehow we’re expecting the story to unfold, beginning/middle/and happy ending, in a single one-hour and 35-minute movie. Yeah, that’s not how reality actually works. 

Reality is having your family settle in the region in 1900, watch a small community grow and then face countless changes in governments with borders moving all around you. This was all literally part of the Ottoman Empire when they settle here, then the British Empire claimed the territory, then they were part of the Kingdom of Jordan, then the Israelis took the lands following the 6-Day war in 1967. If it wasn’t so tragic it would be laughable for a government that didn’t even exist when your family moved into the disputed lands to declare that you illegally settled there. WTF! I know this conflict goes all the way back to the mythical stories of Jacob and Ismael, but in terms of actual documented history, who are the ones who moved here illegally? This is just bullying and cruel harassment.

The story really is about the Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham who put this film together about the destruction of the village of Masafer Yatta. This isn’t about “evil Palestinian terrorists” plotting the ouster of the Israelis occupiers. This is a village of goat herders scratching out an existence on this hilly open territory for over a hundred years. They dug a community well (that gets cemented over by the Israelis), built a community school (which gets bulldozed) and are forced to move into nearby caves (where they’ve ingeniously found a way to run electrical power into and where the film was edited). It’s illegal for the Palestinians to drive and they can’t leave the area to find work. What are they supposed to do? Roll over and die?  

It’s a little unclear, but the government has been wanting to take over this land for decades, saying that they want have a place for their army to practice maneuvers. There is one scene taken at a government hearing where unnamed officials move forward with their plans to destroy any structures on the property without any compensation for the current occupants or plans for the current occupants to follow except to just leave. The one thing that the film does lack is to have some official speaking on camera, explaining why they are doing this, what their justification is for this action is and what plans they have for the current residents. But it’s a bureaucratic head-down blur of government officials signing orders, not answering questions and leaving to do “more important things.”

I found it interesting that as the bulldozers were knocking over school buildings, chicken pens and bathrooms to make way for their military facilities, just over the next hill was a row of homes that looked pretty new that were the residences of Israeli settlers. A bit later a small band of “settlers” showed up carrying weapons near the demolished buildings, apparently hoping to intimidate the Palestinians who trying to gather their belongings. The Israeli troops who were nearby did nothing when the settlers shot and wounded one of the Palestinians and then ran away. It’s almost as if whoever is making these decisions is hoping that the Palestinians would arm themselves. The film ended in October 2023 when this endless harassment triggered, in another occupied territory, something no one could possibly have wanted. It makes me wonder which nameless bureaucrat miscalculated what they hoped that they could get away with. Somebody “F”ed up. 

[Movie view on 2025-03-14 at the Beverly Theater].

UPDATE: The Mayor of the city of Miami has threatened to cancel the lease to a theater that has been showing the film, citing what he calls the film’s alleged antisemitic nature. The film has not found a distributed in the United States due to its “controversial” depiction of Israeli troops and settlers harassing Palestinians and bulldozing their village. 

If this is propaganda, as the mayor alleges, I for one would love to hear the officials who ordered that this village be forcefully torn down, I’d love to hear their documented reasons for taking these steps. Please, show me that part of the story. Why were these people cast off the lands they’ve lived in for over a century?! Let’s hear that side of the story. 2025-03-19. https://www.npr.org/2025/03/19/nx-s1-5330858/movie-theater-in-miami-beach-faces-eviction-after-showing-documentary-no-other-land

UPDATE: Israeli Settlers attack and injure “No Other Land” Palestinian Co-Director, Hamdan Ballal, in a skirmish that began when the settlers attempted to graze their sheep on privately held Palestinian property.  Ballal was arrested and then released when rocks were thrown at Israeli soldiers. He was taken to hospital with injuries to his head and body. 2025-03-25. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/03/24/hamdan-ballal-west-bank-settler-attack/

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Tags: documentaries, learning from history, no other land, Palestinian Israeli conflict, video Mondays 

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