Oscar win by No Other Land is a statement in itself

In the four years that preceded the outbreak of war in Gaza, Israel's military had been mounting an under-reported campaign of destruction against the 19 villages located in the southern region of the West Bank called Masfar Yasrut, one aimed at cleansing it of inhabitants and turning it into a "military zone".

They bulldozed homes, schools, marketplaces, houses of worship and any other standing structure, displacing the families who had lived in these villages for generations and filling their water wells with cement to ensure that the villagers did not return. While conducting their campaign, they shot at whoever stood in their way, including at a boy who was left paralysed and later was taken care of by his mother and siblings, who had sought shelter in a cave.

You would think such heart-wrenching scenes would've shocked us to our core. Alas, they did not. And they did not because, numbing in their routine as they had become, they ceased to elicit from us anything beyond a nauseated shrug. And then we left it at that.

Well, it took the genius of cinematic art, in the form of a documentary, to bring a jolt of moral clarity and a dollop of poignant pathos to that insensate core of ours. The documentary, No Other Land, which detailed the carnage - wrapping production days before the Gaza war started - won a well-deserved Oscar at the Academy Awards on Sunday. The film's co-directors, Basel Adra, a Palestinian, and Yuval Abraham, an Israeli, received a spirited standing ovation from the audience at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles - where not an insignificant number of celebrities in attendance were seen wearing the dove-shaped Free Palestine pin, made fashionable at last year's ceremonies - in the wake of their acceptance speeches.

In his speech, Adra, a native of one of the targeted villages, said he had recently become a father and hoped that his daughter's life would not be like his, "always fearing certain violence, home demolitions and forced displacement". He added that No Other Land reflected "the harsh reality of life" lived by Palestinians everywhere in the occupied territories. "We call on the world", Adra concluded, "to take serious action to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians".

Abraham, standing to his left, said a team of Palestinians and Israelis had made the film together "because, together, our voices are stronger ... When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are not equal. We live in a regime where I am free under civil law but Basel has to live under military law that destroys his life and [that] he cannot control".

He continued: "There is a different path. A political solution. Without ethnic supremacy. [One] with national rights for both of our peoples". Then came the assertion, "And I have to say, as I'm here, that the foreign policy of this country is helping to block this path", followed by the logical appeal, "Why? Can't you see that we [Palestinians and Israelis] are entwined? That my people can be truly safe if Basel's people are truly safe and free. There is no other way".

No other way. No other land.

The documentary caused Free Palestine to trend on X and Alexandra Schwartz to write in the New Yorker on Monday: "Here we have something vanishingly rare - Israelis and Palestinians sharing a stage, speaking with a single voice to say 'enough' ".

But wait. No one is saying here - you would have to be mad to do so - that this brilliant documentary has received adulation across the board. This is still the United States. And in the United States powerful pro-Israel pressure groups still wield considerable power. They still can silence pro-Palestinian voices with impressive ease. Heck, look at No Other Land, an accomplished documentary that had received rave reviews and made a successful run on the international film circuit, including the Berlin Film Festival - not to mention being screened in theatres in 24 countries - yet was not able to get a single distributor in the US.

Why? Oh, come now! Don't ask silly questions.

Despite the hurdles, the film made it - and made it all the way to the Oscars.

Actually, come to think of it, the fact that No Other Land still won without official distribution was an eloquent statement in itself -- one about how the struggle for Palestinian freedom has come to have a leading positional value in the public discourse. In the New York Times's The Point conversation on Monday, for example, Adam Sternberg, culture editor, said: "No Other Land winning was a bigger political statement than anything anyone could've said in an acceptance speech". Yet, heaven knows, the rhetoric used in the two directors' acceptance speeches was "big" enough.

It was, without a doubt, not the kind of rhetoric ordinarily heard at an Oscar ceremony - well, certainly not since Vanessa Redgrave (one of a few performers to receive the so-called Triple Crown of Acting, garnering as she did in her long career an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award), decried "the threats of a small band of Zionist hoodlums" who, protesting her pro-Palestinian views, burned her in effigy outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in 1978 while giving her acceptance speech at the 50th Academy Awards ceremony.

Still, whatever the win by No Other Land implied, it was, for Palestinians, a historic night at the Oscars.

Fawaz Turki is a noted academic, journalist and author based in Washington DC. He is the author of The Disinherited: Journal of a Palestinian Exile.