No other land
Masafer Yatta. Bulldozers. Storm Bert.
It’s been a very windy day. In the Listening Hour, one of the facilitators, responding to the shared experience, across much of the UK, of intense weather conditions, asked ‘What’s the weather like inside you today?’
Storm Bert has caused intense flooding, and 5 deaths to count, in the Midlands, Wales, Northamptonshire, Devon, Cornwall and Yorkshire. There wasn’t flooding in more easterly parts of the country, including London, but there were high winds. I’m not sure if I feel this inside but I have witnessed the copper, red and russet leaves being blown across the park paths and across the street with a force I don’t normally witness. It was like the leaves were colourful creatures with legs. Running. Running with the urgency of fleeing. Compelled.
Green number plate Yellow number plate
Slightly doubtful that cycling was a good idea, I cycled to the Barbican to watch No other Land, a documentary by Palestinian and Israeli journalists, Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham. The film was 5 years in the making and is described by the directors as an ‘act of co-resistance’. It shows the friendship between the two men, who are part of different communities with vastly different life conditions. They wanted to show the stark differences in their lives. Basel lives in Masafer Yatta, which is a collection of 19 Palestinian villages in the Southern most part of the West Bank, around 15 km south of Hebron. These villages are part of ‘Area C’ and under direct Israeli rule. Yuval lives in an Israeli town 30 minutes away.
The film has extraordinary video footage of the destruction of homes, schools and other buildings from 20 years ago, and the destruction is more intensely documented through the footage of Basel and Yuval, over the last 5 years.
The friendship between the men is why this documentary is so moving and powerful. Here are two human beings connecting through their values and sense of justice, despite Yuval living with vastly better life conditions and Basel denied basic human rights such as water, shelter and safety, because of the policies of the Israeli state.
Yuval lives under civilian law, while Basel lives under military law. In every aspect of their lives, Palestinians experience discrimination, resulting in travel restrictions, ID checks and severely limited life choices and expectancy. Green number plates identify Palestinian cars, and they are routinely stopped.
One of the many successes of this documentary is the capacity to capture the beauty and stillness of the rural Hebron hills; in a largely outdoor lifestyle, the elements are close and fire is a necessity. We see Yuval and Basel talking at night under the stars, logs crackling. It’s a sign of their friendship, or what they were prepared to show on film anyway, that Yuval persists in asking What? Why? when Basel’s capacity to express himself dries up. Words fail in inhumane conditions. We witness the excruciating impact on Basel’s wellbeing. He cannot practice the law he spent years studying. He cannot go anywhere. When his dad is arrested again, he has to tend the gas fuelling station which is the family income. Yuval gently insists that he finishes his thoughts to try to name the unspeakable.
And then Yuval drives home, with the yellow number plate on his car.
‘The hardest struggle is to stay on the land’
The villages of Masafer Yatta have been under threat for decades, as Ilan Pappe outlines in this short essay (Everyday Evil in Palestine: The View from Lucifer’s Hill) on the policies introduced to drive Palestinians from the land. In the film, we witness Demolition notices placed on homes, schools and even outdoor playgrounds by the Israeli official tasked with overseeing the demolition.
There is violence against villagers, such as when Harun Abu Aram is shot in the neck while resisting a generator being confiscated, and later in the film, it’s the Israeli settlers who come out with guns and Basel’s cousin is shot.
In addition to direct violence against people, one way of driving Palestinians off the land is by denying access to water. Wells are ruthlessly filled with cement, water pipes unearthed, hacked in two and mangled. The whole area is declared a military firing zone thereby delegitimising the Palestinians’ very existence on the land.
‘You haven’t got a permit!’ an Israeli government official shouts.
‘You won’t give us a permit!’ a villager protests.
Villagers are forced to live in caves, as their attempts to rebuild are also met with demolition. When Harun comes out of hospital, paralysed from the neck down, we see him and his family living in a cave. His mother prays for God to take him to stop his suffering. It’s heartbreaking to witness her despair.
The hardest struggle is to stay on the land where they have lived for generations. At the same time, they have nowhere else to go.
Ilan Pappe in the essay Everyday evil contextualises his use of the word ‘evil’ for violent acts, as part of a quest to understand how “ordinary” people could commit acts that a human being would not usually inflict on another. ‘Ordinary’ people commit extraordinary acts of violence when the target of their actions has been dehumanised. Many times over the past year, I have witnessed Israeli governmental officials and also regular Israelis describing Palestinians as ‘animals’, which is a way of dehumanising another group of people. When this becomes widespread, horror happens.
Whether used consciously (as an act of indoctrination) or not, it is a tactic to interrupt, as Gabor Mate does when someone uses the word ‘animals’ to him in a question at one of his talks.
‘Get used to failing’
In one scene in the documentary, Yuval is frustrated by a low number of views on one of his articles about the demolitions in Masafer Yatta. Basel challenges Yuval on his expectations of creating change. This scene highlights the differences in the realities they live in. When you have expectations that your words and actions matter in the world, you get frustrated easily. When you know that your lives don’t matter, despite resisting nonviolently for two decades, you need to ‘get used to failing’. This is the insight that Basel offers Yuval based on his lived experience. You need a longer term perspective, because as Ilan Pappe comments, the incremental oppression and ethnic cleansing in Palestine has been barely reported in Western media. Even the massacres soon get forgotten. It is for this reason that Yuval and Basel decide to make a documentary rather than reporting on the demolitions on social media. They wanted to make a greater impact and reach a wider audience.
‘Your country cannot continue to support the military occupation.’ Yuval
This film is essential viewing post October 7th 2023. For those of us who really have only recently started paying sustained attention to Palestinian territories, (which to be realistic, is most of us and I own that in myself), this film gives a visceral sense of the prolonged oppression that has been happening in Palestinian territories, not only Gaza, for decades.
It is a sign of the privileged existence that I have, that I can learn about this devastating reality in the comfort of the Barbican cinema. While I write this, while Storm Bert subsides and the clean up begins, I am still aware, as I wrote recently, that the the killing has not even stopped and even if it stopped today, the clean up of the Gaza rubble will take the rest of my life. And there is no clarity that Palestinian lives will be protected in whatever happens next. As Basel says, ‘People need to see what is happening’ in order to create the groundswell of opinion that it is absolutely unacceptable for our governments to support the military occupation, either with arms exports or messages of support to the Israeli government, or with censorship of Palestinian voices and those supporting them.
Yuval comments that they are often asked about their friendship. When asked this, he takes the time to make the point that their friendship is based on shared values, and shared opposition to injustice. The only way friendship can exist when they have such different life experiences, is in this ‘co-resistance’, in resisting together. They both strive towards full political equality and full freedom for everyone who lives in the land. This is what co-liberation is all about. Basel and his community have an urgent need for change for their very survival. Yuval might have greater freedom, but he also lives in a historically unstable and violent place and he has experienced death threats for his journalism. This is not real freedom and it certainly isn’t peace. So they choose co-resistance, which is a life-affirming pathway for any people, from different communities, who want to move towards everyone’s lives and needs mattering.
There is a lot of destruction happening in the world, some of it done with bulldozers, some of it done by the climate, which is also ultimately manmade, with some countries being more of the man that made it. Two days ago COP29 agreed a financial deal in Azerbaijan to help the ‘developing world’ switch to a lower carbon economy which has been criticised by many as a betrayal, with too many loops and caveats and not enough hard cash now. Climate intensifies battles over land and resources. Back in the UK, people blame the authorities for not responding well to the floods.
May we all listen to other people’s suffering and step towards them in their need. May the practice of solidarity speak loudly. May we all give and share and open our homes and hearts, just as Basel’s dad gives his four year old son a date and encourages him to give it to Yuval, a guest, from Israel, in their home.
A reflex of hospitality. You are a living being like me. Welcome.
References
Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham - talking about No other Land NYFF62
Everyday evil in Palestine: The View from Lucifer’s hill Ilan Pappe
Gabor Mate - responding to a comment about ‘animals’
About Harun abu Aram - The Israeli Committee against House Demolitions
the Listening Hour - peer listening space