Screening 'No Other Land' in Manchester

There is no other land

By David Frankal, Manchester Friends of Standing Together

Israel-Palestine is a painful and divisive topic for many, regardless of their entry point into the conversation and their ties, if any, to friends and family on either “side”. Many are engaged out of empathy for the suffering of our fellow humans, and that is good reason enough. Many are, for understandable reasons, angry. And for some, the pain is so great that their instinct becomes to turn away. This is understandable too, but is a force we must overcome if we want things to be better.

Last month, Manchester Friends of Standing Together turned towards the region and gathered to watch the acclaimed film No Other Land. It is essential, though by no means easy, viewing. It is an exceptionally stark and bleak documentation of the imbalance of power that exists in the West Bank, between Palestinian communities who rightfully call the area home, and an aggressive, expansionist and cruel settler-state enterprise pushing them out. A secondary but important theme is the developing friendship between the two lead producers, Basel and Yuval, the former a part of the community being gradually forced out of Masafer Yatta, and the latter a sympathetic Israeli journalist, intent on showing his people what is being done in its name.

Many across the world are watching events in Gaza and the West Bank with well-founded horror and disgust. Most in the Jewish diaspora share the feeling of horror at the human cost of war and occupation, though many feel caught between this moral outrage and a popular discourse that overlooks or minimises Jewish suffering (October 7th, the long saga of the hostages, and the rise in antisemitism worldwide), and at best leaves the question of a future for the seven million Jewish Israelis living in Israel-Palestine unaddressed. Within Israel itself, a different but parallel dynamic is beginning to play out; there is a growing realisation that the resource-intensive war and occupation is pulling state capacity away from things that would actually improve the lives of most Israelis, and that torpedoing their nation’s reputation across the world, even straining their relationships with the United States and with the Jewish diaspora, comes at a great cost.

This isn’t an argument that all these things carry equal weight, or that there is any equivalence, taking a wide view of the situation as a whole, between the Palestinian and Jewish experiences of the last few years. But rather it is to argue that, despite the appearance at times of several irreconcilable views of the world, there is a unifying narrative out there that recognises present imbalance but mutual interest in a different future. Enter Standing Together and its vital work on the ground in Israel-Palestine.

Standing Together grew out of the aftermath of the financial crash of 2008 in Israel, when its founders became convinced that the cause of economic equality and justice, and the cause of Jewish-Palestinian equality and justice, were one and the same. Although its membership, a mix of Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel, is based in Israel proper (behind the pre-1967 Green Line border), its activity and focus has increasingly grown to include Israel’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza too. Standing Together does vital work, passionately campaigning against war and occupation through protests and awareness-raising campaigns.

This is backed up and made real with impressive material work and direct action, from protective presence (standing with Palestinians in the West Bank against the settlers and soldiers who harass and attack them, as Yuval does in No Other Land), to protecting convoys of aid heading to Gaza from right-wing protesters, to fundraising for bomb shelters in Palestinian and Bedouin communities otherwise under-provisioned by the state compared to their neighbouring Jewish communities.

A key mantra of the organisation is that there are seven million Jews and seven million Palestinians living between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea; neither people has any other land to call home, and so they have no choice but to work together to co-exist. Furthermore, it is in Jews’ and Palestinians’ mutual interest to end the war and the occupation, and achieve genuine equality, including equality of national rights, ensuring both peoples are able to self-determine.

Through all this narrative and material work, Standing Together tells a new and different story about Israel and Palestine: one where Jewish and Palestinian histories and traumas can both be recognised, one where both people’s futures can be assured, and one where Palestinians and Jews can break down the physical, institutional and psychological walls between them to become genuine friends — like Basel and Yuval.

Imagining a future where Palestinians and Jews are on equal footing is not a detraction from the brazen injustice and horror of the region today, where they are clearly not. But it is a much-needed intervention into the conversation about tomorrow and how we might get there. By reframing peace and justice into something that will ultimately underpin both Palestinian freedom and Jewish safety — rather than pitting the two against each other — Standing Together’s theory of change presents a viable path to winning over a critical mass of Israeli support, driving change from within Israeli society as well as much-needed international pressure from the outside.

No Other Land is essential viewing because it shows the dire situation as it is today. It is, for the most part, incredibly bleak. But there is a subtle, underlying note of hope. After finishing the film, the attendees sat in a circle to share our thoughts. Some of us were Jewish, with family and friends in Israel. Some of us had Arabic heritage and a strong feeling of kinship with the Palestinians of Masafer Yatta we had encountered in the film. Some of us were taught the Zionist narrative of Israel at school, others perceived Israel mainly as a western settler-colony. Yet despite our differing entry points into the conversation, we had a conversation that was fruitful, insightful, and which lasted nearly an hour longer than we had planned to finish the event. Without trying to sound cheesy, I really believe all you need to build bridges is an open mindset and a willingness to sit down, engage and learn.

The present may be bleak, and people are right to be angry about it. But our small event left me with a little more hope than I had the day before. And we’re not alone; right across the world, [Friends of Standing Together](Friends of Standing Together) groups are facilitating thousands of events and conversations, raising funds and awareness for Standing Together and its work, and telling a different story about Israel and Palestine, about Palestinians and Jews.

You can find out more about UK Friends of Standing Together on this site, including how to join or donate, and you can follow our local activity in Manchester on Facebook. UK viewers can – and should! – find No Other Land on Prime Video.

Over the month of August, we at the Manchester branch are holding a ‘Summer of Solidarity’ by swimming and running to raise money for Standing Together. You can find out more here.