"No Other Land" is a Call to Action
It's a film that we all need to make space to receive.
I had an unusual free Thursday in LA with no client or group sessions. Whenever I’m in the city alone, I check Alamo Drafthouse to see what’s playing. To my surprise, there were two showings of “No Other Land” – the 2024 Oscar®-winning documentary film about the occupied West Bank's Masafer Yatta in Palestine.
According to IMDB, “This film made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective shows the destruction of the occupied West Bank's Masafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers and the alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval.”
It had been on my watch list since hearing about it earlier this month. I immediately decided to head to the first showing of the afternoon.
Knowing the subject matter, no one goes to watch this for enjoyment. I ordered water only. And I breathed deeply to prepare my body for the experience.
I felt a responsibility to watch this film. The same responsibility I feel in witnessing the violence that has been happening in Gaza. A violence that has not ceased across Palestine since the first Zionist settlers arrived in the late 19th century.
The flames of fiery rage rose from within my belly as I watched IDF soldiers repeatedly returning to Masafer Yatta, demolishing building after building with bulldozers as Palestinian families pleaded with them – human to human – not to destroy their homes and lives.
Each time a home is destroyed, a rebuild effort begins, but only at night so as not to call attention. Chicken and lamb enclosures, mangled and smashed. The only playground for the children marked for demolition. An elementary school built by the community with love, fully razed to rubble.
IDF soldiers nonchalantly shooting Palestinian men trying to keep them from taking their tools and their generator – their only source of electricity. Soldiers forcefully threatening Palestinians trying to stop them from cutting off the community’s water supply.
Several times, I had to silently remind myself that what I was watching was real life captured, not a dramatized account of the West Bank. I’m watching real people getting shot. I’m watching real IDF soldiers throwing stun grenades and shooting rounds into a crowd. I’m watching real Zionist settlers with assault rifles attacking the Palestinians with stones and raiding homes.
It was maddening.
I found myself holding my breath as I watched, then drawing in deep breaths repeatedly. Tears had already appeared 15 minutes into the film.
The difference between watching this documentary and watching the clips on Instagram of dead babies and children, is that you’re witnessing Basel and his family’s life, the lives of others in their community, over a span of years. You see home videos of him as a boy, of his father as a young activist. You see how trapped these Palestinians are, and the stark difference between Yuval’s Israeli freedom and Basel’s imprisonment. You watch the Palestinians’ homes be destroyed, their rebuild efforts, more demolition, more attempts to rebuild, more protests, more threats, more violence. Over and over and over.
These families are mercilessly and endlessly terrorized by the IDF. And that is the strategy. To get these Palestinians so demoralized and exhausted that they move out of their rightful home on this land.
“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help.
That’s the message he is sending.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh
Under the fire of anger and rage always exists sadness. That is what I feel for the Zionists. Tremendous grief and sadness for the multi-generations of suffering they had endured as Jews. Suffering so cruel and inhumane that left deep gashes still bloodily raw and unhealed. Fear of annihilation blackened their hearts and turned them into the very monsters that once ravaged their own families and communities.
Dehumanization is a poisonous hatred that infects the victimized and can quickly spread into those they subsequently brutalize, as well as those who witness the senseless torture happening.
It is easy to watch this film and begin to dehumanize the IDF and the Zionist settlers, labeling them as despicable and the lowest of humanity. My rage towards them feels like a cold merciless katana ready to enact vengeance on the conscienceless terrorists.
And yet something in my heart cuts through the fire and wants to lean in and whisper to them – “I’m so profoundly heart-shattered for you and your ancestors. That you were ever made to feel less than human, worthless, unwanted. That you feel such dire scarcity and terror of death that you believe you have no other option but to violently seize your space in this world in order to have any claim of life at all.”
That kind of hatred poisons a people. It poisons humanity. And the antidote cannot be more hatred. Because then it will infect us also, all of us who are standing as witnesses around the world.
I feel I have to work overtime these days to keep my heart open, to stay as human as I possibly can. It’s this very reason why I just launched a free course in my community called HOW TO HUMAN today.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I had the opportunity to watch this film the same day I rolled out this course. There is an invitation held in the synchronicity because these are the practices from ancient Eastern philosophy that I need to clear and ground my energy. Not to “feel better” but to be able to continue showing up and witnessing the suffering.
The genocide is far from over. The terrorism continues. Those of us who have the privilege of safety and security have the responsibility to keep our energy anchored and our hearts open so that we can use our life force to show up in all of our unique ways. To use our gifts in service of the Earth and all her children.
We each play a specific role. We are meant to serve differently.
You – your heart, your skills, your divine gifts – are needed badly here and now. So what are you’re bringing to our communal table?
Whatever your gifts are, I already know they are creating a ripple of impact.
Keep going.
And thank you.