March 4, 2025: No Other Land did not just win best documentary. It showed the world that America’s movie industry can defy, at least once in a while, the people who have been allegedly pulling its strings.
Awarding an Oscar to the collaboration between groups of Palestinians and Israelis is not the first act of the industry that challenges the powers-that-be in the United States. To name just a few, JFK questions the lone gunman theory in the John F Kennedy assassination, Casualties of War depicts American cruelty during the Vietnam War, and even Avatar highlights the concept of invasion for the sake of business interest.
But unlike the three examples, non-Hollywood No other Land did not wait for decades or centuries. (Yes, centuries. Avatar reminds us of the Indians, doesn’t it? One Avatar quote, though, deals with something relatively modern and sounds very familiar _ “When people are sittin' on sh** that you want, you make 'em your enemy. Then you're justified in taking it”.) The award-winning documentary, No Other Land, widens fresh wounds and it gets instant recognition that amplifies the pain.
The documentary film chronicles the eviction of Palestinians from their homes in the occupied West Bank, basically telling the story of the continued demolition by Israeli authorities of Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the Hebron mountains of the West Bank.
The political and military savagery took place where Basel Adra, one of the directors, lived with his family.
The documentary shows the Israeli government’s attempt to evict the villagers by force. Viewers see a local playground being torn down, the killing of Adra’s brother by Israeli soldiers, and other attacks by Jewish settlers while his community becomes hopeless and scared daily.
The film also shows the human connection between Adra and the film’s other creator, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, CNN reported.
While filming for No Other Land wrapped before Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, prompting Israel to launch its brutal war in Gaza, killing a massive number of innocent children and women, the documentary’s themes are especially “relevant” during a time of heightened conflict in the Middle East, said CNN. It was also a time when America’s foreign policy came under unprecedentedly serious scrutiny.
Accepting the award, victim and director Basel Adra said No Other Land reflects the harsh reality Palestinians have been enduring for decades, according to Al Jazeera.
“About two months ago, I became a father, and my hope to my daughter that she will not have to live the same life I’m living now, always fearing settlers, violence, home demolitions and forcible displacements that my community is living and tasting every day under Israeli occupation,” saidAdra as reported by Al Jazeera.
The network reported about the film’s struggles to find a distributor in the US. Its makers had to arrange for it to have a one-week run at the Lincoln Center in November in order to qualify for the Hollywood-dominated Oscars event.
No Other Land had won the audience award and documentary film award at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2024, as well as the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Non-Fiction Film, said Al Jazeera. It added that the film highlights a lot of camcorder footages from Adra’s personal archive, showing Israeli soldiers bulldozing the village school and filling water wells with cement to prevent people from rebuilding.
“Major human rights groups have described the situation as apartheid, an allegation rejected by the Israeli government, which views the West Bank as the historical and biblical heartland of the Jewish people and is opposed to Palestinian statehood,” Al Jazeera said.
The documentary does not romanticize “God-given” land. It’s about human hope to just be able to live safely. The message is not that we have to live on this land because we have divine rights, but that we can’t keep moving on like frightened animals forever.
Europe's pretend fight with America
March 3, 2025: Volodymyr Zelensky is the wife of an abusive husband but will never leave him. Europe is a friend who gives her moral support, but no more and no less.
Donald Trump is the husband, who is telling the friend: “Go ahead and take her in. But you will never be able to give her sustained help. She needs me and you know it.”
Vladimir Putin is her harsh reality, which will only become harsher without the husband.
The friend knows full well the husband is telling the truth. She can comfort the wife, take her to a dinner, or even let her sleep in the guest room for a week or two. More than that and the wife will become an increasing burden.
The friend will condemn the husband, but will never ask her to shoot him or get an immediate divorce, because both women know they can’t live without him.
Why politics has no business in human rights (Part II)
March 2, 2025: Allowing politics in the Uyghur affair is like letting your cat play with a yarn ball and naively expecting the object to remain in the nice original shape afterwards.
We have had America condemn Thailand while turning a blind eye to Israel. (The whole scenario is comparable to a mother crab trying to lecture her children on how to walk straight.) Now, someone has dug up previous UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) internal documents which practically said that potential Chinese wrath should be taken into consideration in the treatment of Uyghurs detained by Bangkok.
According to the New Humanitarian, an independent, non-profit newsroom that has earned a lot of credibility in reports about humanitarian crises around the world, the UNHCR rebuffed requests from the Thai government to assist 48 Uyghur asylum seekers from China who have been detained in poor conditions in Thailand. The New Humanitarian strongly criticised Thailand in its report, but also was critical of how high-level politics in other places was affecting the detainees’ fate.
For years, UNHCR had bemoaned alleged “lack of access” to the detainees. However, the internal UNHCR documents, which date back to 2020, revealed that the Thai government began informally petitioning UNHCR a few years earlier to play a more active role in resolving the Uyghurs’ indefinite detention, and that agency staff advised against doing this.
UNHCR, the New Humanitarian said, has provided life-saving assistance to millions of asylum seekers around the world, but according to a 2023 report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), China’s growing influence over some host countries undermines “any political or humanitarian will to recognise and duly protect Uyghur refugees”. The internal documents suggested that China’s influence also extended to the UN’s refugee agency.
This is just the Chinese “influence”, mind you. Add other global political influences and the yarn ball can never be restored to its original nobility.
“The documents show that UNHCR has failed to uphold its mandate to protect Uyghur refugees,” one senior human rights activist was quoted as saying. “UNHCR leadership does not seem to be proactively trying to find solutions for the Uyghur refugees who are spending years in detention.”
What one gets from over-reliance on "democracy"
March 1, 2025: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has learned it the hard way. Relying on democracy is great, as long as it doesn’t cause a swing that is too extreme. When a political upheaval happens in America, it seriously affects his embattled country, to the point of Ukrainians being unable to decide who they should fear more _ Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump.
Joe Biden’s America backed Ukraine to the hilt. Trump’s America is practically branding Zelensky ungrateful and all but angrily chasing him out of Washington. CNN describes the situation as “the most consequential moment in the war since Russia’s invasion.”
From relying heavily on US financial support and hardware _ which was so overwhelming that it enraged American taxpayers themselves _ Zelensky is staring at the real possibility of losing them all and Europe is looking like a bewildered and unsure sidekick of the United States.
Zelensky’s meeting with Trump and Vice President JD Vance at the Whilte House hours ago exploded in a way the diplomatic world had never witnessed before. The heated exchanges came right out of Gladiator movies or films about Roman tyranny when the emperors berated the Senate.
It’s all because of America’s November “democratic” votes that neutralised the Democrats and reinstalled Trump as president. If this is good, praise democracy. If this is bad, blame democracy.
Daily updates of local and global events by Tulsathit Taptim
