Today, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) officially published a statement in Arabic, confirming that No Other Land violates anti-normalization standards. This vindicates what many of us have been saying. bdsmovement.net/ar/PACBI-NoOth… x.com/nerdeenkiswani…
Palestinians are calling for a boycott of the film, recognizing that despite its portrayal of israeli crimes, it ultimately operates within a normalization framework that undermines our struggle.
The statement clarifies that the film was partially funded by Close-Up, a normalization initiative that brings together Palestinian and israeli filmmakers without requiring Israelis to recognize Palestinian rights under international law.
PACBI outlines two key criteria for an initiative to not be normalization:
•The israeli side must recognize Palestinian rights, including the right of return and an end to occupation & apartheid.
•The project must be a form of co-resistance, not “dialogue” or “coexistence.”
•The israeli side must recognize Palestinian rights, including the right of return and an end to occupation & apartheid.
•The project must be a form of co-resistance, not “dialogue” or “coexistence.”
Other Land fails on both counts—some members of the israeli film team have refused to acknowledge Israel’s genocide in Gaza and continue to push narratives that equate colonizer and colonized.
As I’ve said before, Palestinians do not need israeli validation to tell our stories. Accepting conditions that require israeli approval or participation to gain recognition in Western cultural spaces is itself a function of colonial control.
Some have argued that israeli backlash against the film proves it is not normalization. We must explicitly reject this logic—Zionists attack anything that exposes their crimes, but that alone doesn’t mean something aligns with Palestinian liberation.
Ultimately, No Other Land serves a soft Zionist function—exposing certain injustices while still legitimizing Zionist presence as part of the narrative, rather than centering decolonization and Palestinian liberation on our own terms.
This is why Palestinians are calling for a boycott. No Other Land is not a win for our struggle—it is an attempt to repackage Palestinian suffering in a way that remains palatable to Western institutions.
The fact that so many Palestinians were attacked for clarifying this, after the Oscars, shows the growing need to fortify our collective understanding of normalization & push back against attempts to co-opt Palestinian resistance into frameworks that reinforce Zionist legitimacy.
Normalization is a tool used to pacify and depoliticize Palestinian resistance. The urgency of our struggle demands that we reject these projects and fight for a liberated Palestine on our terms.
Palestinians have no other land—but we must fight for it without normalization.
Palestinians have no other land—but we must fight for it without normalization.
Here’s the English translation of the article: bdsmovement.net/no-other-land
“We find it important to explain how the film is in violation of BDS guidelines for people to enhance the collective understanding of normalization and its dangers, and to protect our struggle from the heightened risk of using normalization to whitewash genocide. The ends never justify the unethical means.”
“We find it important to explain how the film is in violation of BDS guidelines for people to enhance the collective understanding of normalization and its dangers, and to protect our struggle from the heightened risk of using normalization to whitewash genocide. The ends never justify the unethical means.”
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