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Palestinian Filmmaker Demands End to US-Backed 'Ethnic Cleansing' of Gaza, West Bank in Oscar Speech
"There is a different path, a political solution without ethnic supremacy," said Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham. "The foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path."
Mar 03, 2025
The winner of the 2025 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film has been unable to obtain distribution in theaters or on streaming platforms in the U.S.—despite being the highest-grossing Oscar-nominated documentary in the rest of the world—but American viewers were able to hear directly from its filmmakers on Sunday night in speeches that condemned the U.S.-backed "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians.
The directors behind No Other Land, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and Palestinian activist and lawyer Basel Adra, accepted the Oscar while speaking out about the subject matter of their film, which was filmed between 2019-23, before Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
"When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are not equal," Abraham said. "We live under a regime where I enjoy freedom under civil law, and where he is governed by military laws."
Adra and Abraham made the film to tell the story of Masafer Yatta, a collection of towns in the occupied West Bank where Adra lives and where Israeli authorities and settlers have been attacking and evicting residents for years—claiming Israel has a right to use the land for a military training facility. The film chronicles Israeli soliders' killing of Adra's brother and their attacks on West Bank communities by demolishing homes, tearing down playgrounds, and filling water wells with cement so Palestinians cannot rebuild.
In his Oscar acceptance speech, Adra spoke as a new father of a two-month-old.
"My hope to my daughter is that she will not have to live the same life I am living now, always fearing violence, home demolitions, forced displacement that my community, Masafer Yatta, is facing every day," said Adra. "No Other Land reflects the harsh reality we have been enduring for decades and still resist as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people."
Journalist Mehdi Hasan said he was "stunned" that the direct condemnation of "ethnic cleansing" targeting Palestinians was "supportively applauded" by the elite Hollywood audience.
"Times are changing," said Hasan.
Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, agreed, saying the success of No Other Land despite the refusal of U.S. distributors to bring it to U.S. audiences, and the enthusiastic applause that Abraham and Adra garnered, "must scare [the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee AIPAC] and its allies," naming the powerful pro-Israel lobby that holds sway with both Democrats and Republicans.
"They are winning politically but losing culturally," said Beinart. "Their attack ads can't stop Blue America's shift in collective consciousness on the question of Palestinian freedom. If politics really is downstream from culture, they're in trouble."
Abraham, who has reported extensively for +972 about Israel's rules of engagement in Gaza and its targeting of civilian infrastructure, called for an end to "the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people."
"There is a different path, a political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people," said Abraham. "And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path."
Israel, which is set to receive $3 billion in weapons in a package approved by President Donald Trump last week, has forcibly displaced Palestinians from the West Bank since January, when a temporary cease-fire was reached in Gaza.
Over the weekend, Israel once again began blocking all humanitarian aid to the enclave, where more than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israel Defense Forces since October 2023.
Just before Abraham and Adra accepted the Oscar, the Palestinian news agency Wafareported that Israeli soldiers had detained three people in one of the villages in Masafer Yatta and settlers threw stones at residents, destroyed solar panels, and damaged water tanks.
No Other Land has received international accolades including at the Berlin International Film Festival last year, where Abraham condemned "apartheid" in his acceptance speech and subsequently received death threats.
On Democracy Now! on Monday morning, Adra repeated his call for the international community to "take measures and act seriously to end these demolitions and ethnic cleansing that is happening everywhere in Gaza and the West Bank."
"The world just keeps watching and not taking serious actions," said Adra.
Last week, advocates rebuked the BBC for canceling plans to air another documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone.
The fact that Adra and Abraham's film "can't get a distributor in the U.S.," said Hasan, "tells you everything about censorship in the U.S."
Abraham toldThe New York Times last month that the filmmakers have heard from many Americans asking how they can watch No Other Land, prompting them to release it independently with plans to show the film in about 100 theaters in the United States.
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Israel Delays Prisoner Release, Threatening Gaza Cease-Fire
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is "prepared to resume intense fighting at any moment."
Feb 23, 2025
The fragile Gaza cease-fire between Israel and Hamas was thrown into uncertainty Sunday after the Israeli government announced it would not immediately move forward with what would have been the largest single-day release of Palestinian prisoners since the truce was agreed to in January.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israeli forces "are prepared to resume intense fighting at any moment."
"In Gaza, we have eliminated most of Hamas' organized forces, but let there be no doubt, we will complete the war's objectives entirely—whether through negotiation or by other means," he said.
Netanyahu cited what it called "humiliating ceremonies" that Hamas has orchestrated while releasing some of the 25 Israeli hostages who the group has freed since the cease-fire went into effect, when he announced that 620 Palestinian prisoners would not be released as planned.
Nour Odeh, a reporter for Al Jazeera in Amman, Jordan, said the delay was announced "against the recommendation of Israel's security establishment."
Most of the prisoners were detained in Gaza since Israel began bombarding the enclave in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
Six Israeli hostages were released Saturday as planned; Hamas has paraded some of the captives on a stage while handing them over in ceremonies that the group has said do "not include any insult to them."
The cease-fire deal does not include stipulations about how prisoners should be released, and some international observers noted that Israel has released Palestinian detainees wearing shirts displaying the Star of David and phrases translated into Arabic that threatened revenge for Hamas attacks on Israel.
In Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian families who were gathered to welcome their family members home from Israeli prisons learned that Israel was refusing to move forward with freeing prisoners until the future release of more Israeli hostages "has been assured."
"We wait for them, to hug them, and see them, but Netanyahu is always stalling," Fatiha Abu Abdullah, a mother of a detained Palestinian in Khan Younis, Gaza, toldAl Jazeera. "God willing, they will be released soon."
The cease-fire is set to expire in early March unless Israel and Hamas can agree to an extension. In the second phase of the truce agreement, a permanent cease-fire is set to be established and Israeli forces are set to completely withdraw from Gaza.
"By postponing the release of our Palestinian prisoners according to the phase one cease-fire agreement, the enemy government is acting rampantly and exposing the entire agreement to grave danger," senior Hamas official Basem Naim said in a statement, called on the U.S. "to pressure Netanyahu and his government to implement the agreement as it is and immediately release our prisoners."
As the prisoner release was delayed, Israeli warplanes flew at low altitudes over Beirut, Lebanon as thousands of people gathered for the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the army planes were deployed to send "a clear message: Whoever threatens to destroy Israel and attacks Israel—that will be the end of him."
Ramy Abdul, chairman of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, called the delayed prisoner release along with the deployment of warplanes "childish, theatrical stunts by a shaken entity that sees no future for itself in this region."
The government media office in Gaza this week reported that Israel has violated the cease-fire agreement more than 350 times since it was established in mid-January, killing at least 92 Palestinians and injuring at least 822 more in direct attacks.
Meanwhile, Katz said Sunday that Israeli troops will remain in the West Bank for "the coming year" as tanks moved into the territory for the first time since 2002.
The United Nations has confirmed that about 40,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from refugee camps in the West Bank, with Israel pushing to further its goal of achieving what Al Jazeeracalled a "demographic shift" in the territory.
Jewish settlers have carried out violent attacks across the West Bank since the Gaza cease-fire was reached, and as Common Dreams reported last week, Israeli officials have moved to expand a Jewish-only settlement in the West Bank by nearly 1,000 homes.
"If we look at history in 1948 and 1967, immediately after the war Israel tried to change Palestinian demography to seize maximum territory—it's doing the same now," Menachem Klein, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, toldAl Jazeera. "There is a war and Israel tries to gain some demographic and geographic achievements to further base Jewish supremacy in the region."
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What’s So Dangerous About Trump’s Plan for Ethnically Cleansing Gaza?
The risk is less that the U.S. would actually invade and more that Trump’s words would give Israel the green light to push Palestinians out of the West Bank or renew its offensive in Gaza.
Feb 18, 2025
Let’s be clear: The forced displacement of Palestinians is not a new idea. U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest proposal to take “long-term ownership” of Gaza, to “clean out” the “mess,” and to turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East” is just the latest iteration of efforts aimed at ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their homeland.
What makes Trump’s comments dangerous is not the immediate threat of U.S. military intervention in Gaza followed by the expulsion of its 2.2 million residents. The real danger lies elsewhere.
First, Israel may interpret Trump’s words as a green light to push Palestinians out of Gaza or the West Bank. Second, the U.S. could tacitly endorse another Israeli offensive under the guise of fulfilling the president’s wishes. Third, Trump’s remarks suggest his foreign policy on Palestine will remain largely unchanged from his predecessor’s.
Trump’s so-called “humanitarian” ethnic cleansing proposal will similarly go down in history as another failed attempt, particularly as Arab and international solidarity with the steadfast Palestinian people is stronger than it has been in years.
Some Democrats have seized this moment to criticize Arab and Palestinian Americans who voted for Trump or abstained from supporting Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the last elections. However, the idea of ethnic cleansing was already being floated during the Biden administration.
While then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated that “Palestinian civilians... must not be pressed to leave Gaza,” former President Joe Biden created the conditions for displacement through unconditional military support for Israel. This allowed one of the most devastating wars in modern Middle Eastern history to unfold.
Just days into the war, on October 13, 2023, Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned Blinken in Amman against any Israeli attempt to “forcibly displace Palestinians from all Palestinian territories or cause their internal displacement.”
The latter displacement became a reality as most of northern Gaza’s population was crammed into overcrowded refugee encampments in central and southern Gaza, where conditions have been and remain inhumane for over 16 months.
At the same time, another displacement campaign is underway in the West Bank, particularly in its northern regions, accelerating in recent weeks. Thousands of Palestinian families have already been displaced in the Jenin governorate and other areas.
Despite this, the Biden administration has done little to pressure Israel to stop.
Arab concerns over Palestinian expulsion were real from the war’s outset. Almost every Arab leader raised the alarm, often repeatedly.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi addressed the issue multiple times, warning of Israeli efforts—and possibly U.S. involvement—in a “population transfer” scheme.
“What is happening now in Gaza is an attempt to force civilian residents to seek refuge and migrate to Egypt,” Sisi stated, insisting that such an outcome “should not be accepted.”
Fifteen months later, under Trump, he repeated his rejection, vowing that Egypt would not participate in this “act of injustice.”
The Saudi statement was issued almost immediately after Trump doubled down on the idea during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 4. The Saudi foreign ministry went further than rejecting Trump’s “ownership” of Gaza but articulated a political discourse that summarized Riyad’s, in fact, the Arab League’s position on Palestine.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirms that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s position on the establishment of a Palestinian state is firm and unwavering,” the statement said, adding that the Kingdom “also reaffirms its unequivocal rejection of any infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, whether through Israeli settlement policies, land annexation, or attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land.”
The new U.S. administration, however, seems oblivious to Palestinian history. Given the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948, no Arab government—let alone the Palestinian leadership—would support another Israeli-U.S. effort to ethnically cleanse millions into neighboring states.
Beyond the immorality of expelling an Indigenous population, history has shown that such actions destabilize the region for generations. The 1948 Nakba, which saw the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, ignited the Arab-Israeli conflict, whose repercussions continue today.
History also teaches us that the Nakba was not an isolated event. Israel has repeatedly attempted ethnic cleansing, starting with its intense attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza in the early 1950s, and ever since.
The 1967 war, known as the Naksa or “Setback,” led to the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, both internally and externally. In the years that followed, various U.S.-Israeli initiatives throughout the 1970s sought to relocate the Palestinian population to the Sinai desert. However, these efforts failed due to the steadfastness and collective resistance of the people of Gaza.
Trump’s so-called “humanitarian” ethnic cleansing proposal will similarly go down in history as another failed attempt, particularly as Arab and international solidarity with the steadfast Palestinian people is stronger than it has been in years.
The key question now is whether Arabs and other supporters of Palestine worldwide will go beyond merely rejecting such sinister proposals and take the initiative to push for the restoration of the Palestinian homeland. This requires a justice-based international campaign, rooted in international law and driven by the aspirations of the Palestinian people themselves.
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