Israel upset about Oscar for 'No other land'

Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar on Monday described the Oscar win for "No other land," an Israeli-Palestinian documentary about the demolition of Palestinian villages in the West Bank, as "a sad moment for the world of cinema."

The Israeli right-wing religious government that Zohar belongs to is considered to be friendly towards Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, who have been accused of trying to take more land by violently evicting Palestinians from their homes.

Filmmakers Basel Adra, a native of the West Bank, and Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist, used the opportunity to address the situation in the region when accepting the Oscar for "No other land" onstage during the 97th Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday night.

Israeli Culture Minister Zohar criticized their documentary in an English-language post on X, accusing the filmmakers of having choosen "to amplify narratives that distort Israel's image vis-à-vis international audiences" instead of "presenting the complexity of Israeli reality."

"Freedom of expression is an important value, but turning the defamation of Israel into a tool for international promotion is not art - it is sabotage against the State of Israel, especially in the wake of the October 7th massacre and the ongoing war," Zohar wrote.

"This is precisely why we passed a reform in state-funded cinema — to ensure that taxpayer money is directed toward works of art that speak to the Israeli audience, rather than an industry that builds its career on slandering Israel on the global stage," he added.