'No Other Land' scores with human story, mesmerizing cinematography, surprising cameos of law

A Palestinian-Israeli collaboration yielded the Academy Award-winning documentary No Other Land, which is well worth the price of admission.

No Other Land plays the Avon in Providence, R.I.
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

I disclaim: it was neither paroxysm of wokeism nor Oscar allure that drew me and my wife to an actual theater last weekend for No Other Land (2024) (IMDb). Rather, I was enticed by news that the film failed to secure mainstream distribution in the United States, for fear of protests, and, accordingly, that its debut at the independent O Cinema South Beach drew threats of retaliation.

I'm a sucker for a free speech story. That, and our favorite Indian restaurant is across the street from the independent Avon Cinema in Providence, Rhode Island. I did not expect No Other Land to live up to its Rotten Tomatoes perfect score. It did, and then some.

No Other Land is the product of four co-directors, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor. A Palestinian activist and Israeli journalist respectively, Adra and Abraham are featured in the film, which intimately depicts the slow battle between residents and the Israeli army over the villages of Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank. The film covers 2019 to 2023, when Adra lived in Masafer Yatta and Abraham visited there to write about the army's destruction of homes in an effort to evict Palestinians from the land.

No Other Land does not try to relate other than the Palestinian side of the story. But it also doesn't try to hit you over the head as a polemic; I had been worried about investing 90 minutes in that vein. The beauty of the film—and it is beautiful, worth time in front of the big screen, despite the tragic subject matter—is in the depiction of human relationships in the face of profound adversity: within and between the families of Masafer Yatta, in how the Palestinians relate to Abraham as an outsider, and, at the heart of it, in the sometimes awkward but deepening friendship of Adra and Abraham.

Law figured in No Other Land in some surprising ways. On the face of it, the tragedy of Masafer Yatta was precipitated by Abu ‘Aram v. The Minister of Defense, a 2022 ruling of the Israeli Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, green-lighting the eviction of Palestinian residents for the purported purpose of creating an Israeli military training zone. 

Notwithstanding realist accusations of naked partisanship, the court rested its ruling on the classification of the land, by prior agreement, as under Israeli security control. Civil society the world over decried the ruling as inconsistent with human rights law concerning occupied territories. For more, here's an informative commentary by Yaël Ronen, a law professor in Jerusalem, writing at the time for the West Point Lieber Institute's Articles of War.

Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham receive film award in Berlin.
Martin Kraft (photo.martinkraft.com) via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

The law figured also into the story at the more intimate level. The film surfaced the fact, which I had not learned from any of the hype, that Adra trained as a lawyer, not as a filmmaker or journalist. Here is an exchange in the film between Adra and Abraham.

ABRAHAM: Nothing on mainstream news about the demolitions. As if it happened, but also, it never happened.

ADRA: We'll keep filming everything. And we have to think how to reach more people in different ways. That would be excellent I think.

ABRAHAM: Why are you on your phone all day?

ADRA: It's from stress. Stress, stress, stress.

ABRAHAM: You're afraid something will happen?

ADRA: Yes, but also I'm stressed because I have nothing to do.

ABRAHAM: What do you mean?

ADRA: I don't know.

ABRAHAM: What?

ADRA: What can I do besides being on my phone? Huh? I have nothing else, only my phone.

ABRAHAM: What would you like to do?

ADRA: Anything else.

ABRAHAM: But you studied law, can't you practice it?

ADRA: That's something I lost hope in. Students like me studied so hard for a law degree. But our economy is ruined. You can find work only in Israel.

ABRAHAM: What work?

ADRA: Construction. No other option. Like you never went to university. What do you think? If you were in my place, what would you think?

The scene captures the utter despair of Palestinians in Masafer Yatta. And at the same time, Adra smiles intermittently. His indomitable spirit is irresistibly charming.

The conversation is revealing, too, of a mesmerizing cinematographic device at work in No Other Land. Adra is on his phone a lot; the phone, in fact, or smartphone videography, almost becomes a character itself in the narrative.

There are two kinds of video in the film. First, there is smartphone video, often the very same clips that Adra and others upload to social media in the online battle of public relations playing out for the world. Second, there is the high-quality video of the movie camera.

Adra and other Palestinians, as well as Israeli soldiers and civilian authorities, are seen constantly wielding smartphone cameras. The film in fact is bookended with older personal video from Adra's childhood. In the conflict, Palestinians use their smartphones as witnesses, for example, announcing to a soldier, "I am filming," in an effort to deter violence. These videos bring raw and jarring urgency to the big screen.

At the same time, movie cameras never stop rolling, and for them, the fourth wall never breaks. When the smartphones are turned off, the movie cameras continue to capture the mundane but moving interludes that constitute life between exigencies: Adra left alone at night when Abraham drives off to the security of his home; the tears of a mother left to care for a dying son.

No Other Land is art and reality at once. It deserves its accolades, and it should be seen. If it tells only part of a story, so be it. It bears truths that must be reckoned with nonetheless if ever there can be a way forward in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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Kadai chicken, Rupee Basmati Rice Lager, and chicken madras at Kabob and Curry, Providence, R.I.
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 with no claim to underlying mouthwatering presentation

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Amos, King: love one another; defend the oppressed; plead the cause of the innocent, the powerless

David Erickson CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, I was blessed with the opportunity to stand in the pulpit of the historic North Scituate Baptist Church, Rhode Island, affording a rest for beloved Pastor Kim Nelson there.

I spoke to the Book of Amos, chapter 5, verses 21 to 24 (NIV), often cited by Dr. King. In the "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963 (photo), Dr. King quoted Amos 5:24: “[L]et judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (KJV).

In the history of the church, Amos at times has been controversial for its ominous depiction of God. But Amos contains a call for social justice that is as important and relevant today as it was in America during the Civil Rights Movement and in Israel in the 8th century B.C.

My wife and I are deeply grateful to the people at North Scituate for their warm hospitality.

Remembering peaceful times in Tyre

I'm saddened by the expansion of the war in the Middle East into Lebanon upon yesterday's attacks by Israel on Hezbollah. To be clear, I'm not (here and now) meaning to make a political statement nor favor a side. Rather, I am remembering time I spent in the south of Lebanon and praying for the safety of civilians I met there. In contrast with the latest images from Tyre (Reuters), I took this photo of kids playing at the Tyre Coast Nature Reserve in May of 2018. I wonder where these boys are now, as thousands flee the south of Lebanon for Beirut and points north. Photo by RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Israeli law profs raise alarm over judicial reforms

Proposed judicial reforms in Israel have set off a firestorm with critical characterizations comparing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the likes of Jair Bolsonaro and Viktor Orbán.

Israel has seen a possible division—now familiar to the United States, cf., most recently, the House Speaker election (NPR)—between a traditionally conservative right and a more extreme right since Netanyahu retained office by allying with parties NPR characterized as "ultra-Orthodox religious" and "ultra-nationalist."

The reforms, which are not yet law, comprise two plans The New York Times described:

Under the first plan, a simple majority of lawmakers could override almost any revocation of parliamentary legislation by the Supreme Court, which can currently block laws on constitutional grounds. The court would only be able to prevent itself from being overruled by Parliament if all of its 15 judges unanimously agreed about the need to block a law.

Under the second plan, the government would be able to appoint a majority of the members of the panel that selects new judges, upending the current system in which government appointees form only a minority of panel members.

Israeli Supreme Court with Knesset behind.
Israeltourism via Wikimedia Commons CC BY 2.0

On the one hand, the proposals would weaken the Israeli judiciary. But some commenters, such as American conservative Josh Hammer, have observed that the proposals are not radical. My colleague Professor Dwight Duncan has argued that a U.S. Supreme Court majority, or at least super-majority, should be required to strike down legislation as unconstitutional. Arguably, the approach better balances the legislative and judicial branches than does extra-textual judicial supremacy. The second proposal would effect a selection process hardly more partisan than federal judicial appointments in the United States.

On the other hand, Israel is not America, and it might be a more urgently pluralist democratic experiment. As well, the ways of our dated Constitution are hardly exclusive pronouncements of best practices. In the context of populist executive aggrandizement in places such as Brazil and Hungary, and subordination of judicial power, as in Poland, the Israeli reform proposals are at least cause for concern.

Objections have come not only from Israeli liberals, but also from economic conservatives, who don't want the economic apple cart upset. The Jewish Telegraph Agency explained, "Foreign investors and international credit agencies have both signaled that if the reforms go through, they will downgrade their estimation of the country," disrupting perception of Israel as "a democratic oasis in the Middle East" possessed of "business savvy."

For the reform side, a proponent think tank posted a perhaps-too-playful, Schoolhouse Rock-style video on Twitter. For opponents, I received Friday from my friend and colleague Professor Roy Peled a statement signed by 198 Israeli professors, including, Professor Peled wrote, the majority of faculty from 13 law schools in Israel. The brief statement reads:

We, senior academic members of staff at law faculties in Israel, strongly oppose the regime change that the Israeli government is promoting under the guise of “legal reforms”. These far-reaching constitutional changes include providing the government with absolute control over the appointment of the judiciary; near complete elimination of judicial review; dissolution of civil-servant ministerial legal counsels as gatekeepers; and undermining the freedom of the press. In aggregation, these proposals suffocate the independence of the judiciary, dissolve the separation of powers between the branches of governments, and eliminate the rule of law. No recognized democratic country in the world operates under such conditions. The combination of the proposed changes is alarming and dangerous. It will bring far-reaching infringements of human rights, and strip Israel’s system of government of fundamental features of its structure as a democracy.

We call on those involved in the legislative process to avoid hasty constitutional legislation that would transform the character of the State of Israel, and we urge them to initiate a process of open, respectful, and tolerant deliberation with the aim of reaching broad agreements on these deeply consequential matters.

I'll park a copy of the letter with its signatories here for the next few months.

UPDATE, Jan. 31, 2023: Professor Peled today sent news of a companion statement by U.S. law professors.

U.S. State Department dabbles in gamer diplomacy

Flickr by Casey Fiesler, CC BY 2.0

The U.S. State Department announced in April that it will sponsor 10-week virtual student exchange programs to connect teens from the United States, Bahrain, Israel, and the UAE to collaborate in developing "social impact video games."  "Game Exchange" is part of a State Department grant award to Games for Change, a Woodside, N.Y.-based nonprofit that, by its own description, "empowers game creators and social innovators to drive real-world impact through games and immersive media."  Game Exchange aims to reach 3,000 middle and high school students over two years by pairing classrooms across borders.  I am a believer in "sports diplomacy" by the State Department and in the related work of organizations such as Soccer Without Borders, so I guess I should get behind this STEM equivalent.  Read more at Games for Change or at The Washington Post (bafflingly not pay-walled at last check).  Hat tip to Jennifer Batista at IP Media Law and Updates from New York City-based Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz.