Palestinian Filmmaker Demands End to US-Backed 'Ethnic Cleansing' of Gaza, West Bank in Oscar Speech

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 Wafa reported 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 told The 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.