The co-director of “No Other Land” called out American foreign policy while accepting the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film during Sunday’s Academy Awards.
Israeli filmmaker and journalist Yuval Abraham began his speech by calling out apartheid-like conditions in Israeli-occupied regions of the Palestinian territories.
Referring to his collaborator, Palestinian activist Basel Adra, he said, “When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are unequal.”
“We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law, and Basel is under military law that destroy his life and he cannot control,” Abraham continued. “There is a different path, a political solution. Without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people.”
He then turned his attention to the United States, whose staunch military support for Israel and recent decision to freeze humanitarian aid across the world are having dire consequences in Gaza.
“I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path,” Abraham said.
“Can’t you see that we are intertwined? That my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe? There is another way.”
“No Other Land’s” win comes at a critical time for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
The film chronicles the decades-long loop of destruction that has dominated life in the occupied West Bank.
Made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of activists and journalists, the film earned widespread acclaim but was unable to secure distribution in the United States.
“No Other Land’s” Oscar comes as Israel has once again halted aid to Gaza as it pressures Hamas to agree to extend the terms of the region’s tenuous ceasefire after the first phase of the pact expired on Saturday.
Hamas has called Israel’s actions a “cheap extortion, a war crime and a blatant attack” on plans to progress to the next stage of the provisional arms treatise, which began in January.
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Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority, which holds limited governing power within the West Bank, is in the midst of an aggressive crackdown on Islamic militants in the refugee city of Jenin.
While similar efforts by Israel recently displaced tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees, the Palestinian Authority’s campaign is being seen as a way to demonstrate its ability to control security in the West Bank on its own terms.
