One of the glories of the United States is the First Amendment, which enshrines the freedom of speech into the laws and fundamental values of the United States. After the Second World War, this guiding principle became a foundational basis of the postwar order in democratic countries, including the State of Israel.
However, there is a critical counterpoint to this concept—free speech must mean responsible speech. We are not free to libel and slander, perjure ourselves under oath or shout fire in a crowded theater.
“No Other Land,” which won the 2025 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature on March 2, falls firmly into the realm of irresponsible speech.
Consider the directors’ statement released with the movie: “We’re making this film together, a Palestinian-Israeli group of activists and filmmakers, because we want to … resist the reality of Apartheid we were born into … .” This is a calumny. The Afrikaan’s term “Apartheid” specifically refers to South Africa’s former system of racial segregation, which even banned interracial relationships. Israel, in contrast, has granted full civil, social and political rights to all its citizens, regardless of race or religion, since its founding. In their acceptance speeches, one of the directors, Palestinian Basel Adra, accused Israel of engaging in “ethnic cleansing,” while another, Israeli Yuval Abraham, accused it of “ethnic supremacy.”
These are not accurate descriptions of Israel’s society and reality; they are outrageous misrepresentations designed to incite hatred.
“No Other Land” was created purportedly to show “the destruction of the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers and the alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel [Adra] and Israeli journalist Yuval [Abraham].” Adra explains the purpose of the film: to document that “Israeli settlers are raiding and burning our villages while soldiers arrest us, abuse us and demolish our homes.”
What is the truth of these inflammatory accusations? Masafer Yatta is a cluster of unauthorized Palestinian outposts within an Israeli Defense Forces training zone in the Hebron Hills in the far south of Judea and Samaria (commonly referred to as the West Bank), with a combined population of about 1,300 as of 2022. Satellite imagery shows that there was no permanent Palestinian presence in the area until the 1990s, while the IDF training zone was established in 1979.
Yet Palestinian residents claim their presence predates the IDF training zone. The issue was thoroughly litigated, and in 2022, the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that “no signs of habitation can be observed in the area before 1980, certainly not permanent habitation in the entire area,” allowing the IDF to proceed with removing squatters in the area.
The film’s creators don’t see things that way, intending instead to create a highly emotional spectacle that frames Israeli soldiers and citizens as evil, and the Palestinians as hapless victims. Abraham, a journalist and investigative reporter for the independent media outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call, talks of them as “the only places” he can “try to use my privilege to expose the mechanisms of oppression in our country, whether it’s by documenting the demolition of a Palestinian family’s home in Jerusalem or speaking to refugees in Jenin.”
In his acceptance speech after winning two major prizes at the Berlinale International Film Festival, Abraham, for the first time, referred to Israel’s position in the West Bank as “apartheid.” He also called for a ceasefire with Hamas but made no mention of its brutal attacks in Jewish communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that left more than 1,200 people dead in the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Nor did he mention 251 others taken hostage, to be tortured and many to be killed in Gaza, including 12 Americans.
Later, Abraham tried to defend himself by saying that a ceasefire would have benefited the hostages, too. Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner called the comments an “intolerable relativization” and tweeted: “Antisemitism has no place in Berlin, and that also applies to the art scene.”
Avraham’s co-creator, Adra, is a Palestinian resident of the Masafer Yatta collections of settlements who calls himself “a Palestinian journalist and activist fighting to save my community … from forced eviction.” In 2021, Adra was accused of intentionally setting fire to a structure in Masafer Yatta, and trying to frame the IDF and Jewish residents for the act.
The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, despite never finding a major U.S. distributor after a limited one-week Oscar-qualifying theatrical run at the nonprofit Film at Lincoln Center.
Israeli Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar said: “The Oscar win for the film ‘No Other Country’ is a sad moment for the world of cinema … the filmmakers chose to echo narratives that distort Israel’s image in the world … turning the slander of Israel into a tool for international promotion is not creativity—it is sabotage of the State of Israel.”
This is the second year in a row that the Academy Awards has honored filmmakers who used their precious time in the limelight to slander Israel. Last year, in his acceptance speech for the Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest,” writer-director Jonathan Glazer infamously said: “Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness … .”
Yes, it’s wonderful that we live in a society founded on free expression. But using those precious rights to spread misinformation, and encourage hatred of Israel and Jews at a time when antisemitism is spreading like wildfire around the globe with almost half of adults worldwide now holding significant antisemitic views? That is a misuse of the sacred platform of the creator. It is almost unforgivable.