The backlash was inevitable. No sooner had directors Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal, and Rachel Szor accepted the Academy Award for best documentary for their film “No Other Land” — which tells the story of Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Masafer Yatta region in the occupied West Bank, including Basel and Hamdan’s own communities — than the attacks began.
Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar accused the film of “defamation” and “distort[ing] Israel’s image,” urging movie theaters in Israel to refrain from screening it. Many in the Israeli media rushed to denounce it as “propaganda” or “worse than a lie,” while the directors received a barrage of venomous hatred on social media. ….more