Hasbara at the Oscars

If your like me you don’t care about the Oscars. I just happened to turn it on – after some peer pressure – just in time to see the only part I cared about. No Other Land won an Oscar for best documentary.

It gave Palestinians recognition, bringing attention to the never-ending oppression and land theft happening the the occupied land that’s supposed to be part of a future Palestinian state.

No one ever stops to ask exactly how Palestinians will have a state when they don’t have land.

No Other Land‘s win also gave the co-director Yuval Avbraham a voice on international prime time. He used that time, Mondoweiss and others report, to condemn ethnic cleansing in Masafer Yatta, where the movie takes place. But he failed to condemn Zionism and praised “both-side’ism”.

It’s not that Israelis and Palestinians can’t live together, but that they can’t live as equals in the current system.

Yuval’s speech, Nada Elia correctly writes in Mondoweiss, condemns Zionism’s current actions without condemning Zionism. It was a speech of perfect hasbara (propaganda), calling for change without changing the system.