Walls Between Us| The mind and conscience of the enemy

Edward Said's maxim, “We must capture the minds of not only our people but also our oppressors,” is unsettling for those who reflect on it carefully.

This sentence is troubling because it calls us to some undefined action directed at the enemy, or how to deal with them -or at least certain segments of them. The anxiety deepens because the magnitude of the task seems enormous, moving beyond the realm of the self and venturing into the terrain of the other/the enemy/the oppressor.

The notion becomes even more complex when considering what “imagination” means in this context. I may be mistaken, but Said’s call to capture the minds suggests the need to win the hearts, sympathy, even allegiance of segments of the enemy society.

Most of Edward Said’s ideas have enjoyed a kind of immunity in Arab intellectual spaces, while simultaneously being subjected to systematic distortion by his detractors. His immunity in our ranks is both natural and deserved: Said was one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, a figure whose intellectual integrity, moral clarity, and unwavering commitment are beyond reproach. The attacks against him from the Israeli side also have a logic: Said’s work stood in direct opposition to the image Israel had long crafted of Palestinians.

But those who lack Said’s immunity rarely venture into the minefield around thorny questions of how we might act towards the other/the enemy. To debate such issues in practical/pragmatic terms is to risk being accused of betrayal. Such conversations are often quickly labeled as “normalization,” and those who raise them, as individuals or groups, may find themselves accused of breaking the Arab consensus.

This is especially fraught today, when many Arab individuals and institutions are openly rushing to normalize ties with Israel. In this atmosphere, any attempt to discuss “capturing the mind” of the other, let alone winning hearts, is laden with danger. Such a discussion risks becoming a gateway for some to fall into the enemy’s embrace, to be co-opted, and to present normalization as part of a process of emotional or intellectual outreach.

Celebrities and immunity

What if the Palestinian director who collaborated with an Israeli director to create “No Other Land” (2024) had been Elia Suleiman, Michel Khleifi, Rashid Masharawi, or Annemarie Jacir? Would the film and its awards have been received differently?

It’s a loaded question, but a necessary one that echoes in the minds of many who follow Palestinian cinema. There’s a certain irony in the fact that the Oscars, an award coveted by filmmakers across the globe and never previously won by an Arab, was finally handed to an unknown young Palestinian, an outsider to the professional industry.

Basel Adra is not from Nazareth, a known hub of Palestinian filmmakers. He’s not part of any Western European or American artistic circles, nor based in Ramallah, Beirut, or Dubai. He didn’t even study film. He lives in a poor home threatened with demolition in a small Palestinian village that most of us have never heard of.

Yes, there is a whiff of elitism in the, at best, lukewarm reaction to Adra’s win. At worst, some found it easy to accuse his film of being an act of normalization, simply because neither he nor the co-director, Yuval Abraham, are known names. Neither of them have been fixtures on the funding circuit at major festivals that often anoint people as “filmmakers” even before they’ve made a film. Neither had a record of “worried” cultural reflections about cinema as a means of global engagement—especially the kind of musings that, when uttered under the glitzy roofs of Gulf entertainment summits, are curiously never questioned.

It is unsettling for some that a young unknown from outside the elite, insular, and highly selective film industry could win not only an Oscar but also a major prize at the Berlin Film Festival. And while some are simply uncomfortable with this, others open a Pandora’s box of suspicions; simply because we didn’t know his name before, and now it appears beside an Israeli one.

The same distinction applies to Mahmoud Darwish, the iconic poet, giving an interview to an Israeli journalist or engaging with Israeli cultural figures, when compared to a young Arab poet doing the same. It's acceptable for Darwish but for the fledgling poet accusations fly.

We seem to need a big name to front these ambiguous positions, to reassure us when things feel problematic. It’s one thing when Edward Said, the Columbia professor, says we must win the minds of our oppressors, and quite another if those words are spoken by a young, unknown Arab scholar at an American university without Said’s towering legacy.

Of course, immunity for and trust in well-known names, rooted in long histories of commitment, is natural. People need to feel secure, to identify figures who represent and speak for them. But this can drift into elitism, even as far as impudence, when Yuval Abraham is asked to prove his “resistance credentials” and show evidence of the personal cost he has paid within Israeli society for his support of Palestinians in Masafer Yatta.

Ironically, most of those demanding this of him have likely done little, if anything, for the people of Masafer Yatta—or for any village under occupation in 1948 or 1967 Palestine.

When ‘The Other’ captures our imagination

Returning to the names of Palestinian directors -without passing judgment on their films, including “No Other Land”- one must point to a key reason for that film’s success on the festival circuit. As discussed in two previous articles, the film departs from the global glut of “voyeuristic realism” that has plagued documentary cinema.

Another critical factor cannot be ignored: “No Other Land” does not endorse myths of coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis, but focuses squarely on the identity-based oppression of Palestinians and sensitizes the viewer to the real differences between the lived realities of both directors. At the same time, the film does not push formal or thematic boundaries to the radical edge, which makes it more digestible to international audiences.

There is at least one precedent for a Palestinian-Israeli directorial collaboration: “Route 181” (2003), co-directed by Michel Khleifi and Eyal Sivan. This project was widely accepted in Arab and Palestinian circles, even before many had seen and thought about the film. Outside the region, however, it was marginalized, and most of the global film community is unaware of its existence, destined to remain confined to Arab and anti-Zionist Israeli audiences.

Yuval and others like him are partners in struggle, not enemies or adversaries

There is nothing mysterious about the film's reception. Khleifi had earned his place in Arab film circles after a number of productions; Sivan’s commitment to the Palestinian cause and opposition to his state, Israel, were deeply rooted. But Sivan’s aesthetic, which favors personal testimonies over cinematic trends, wasn’t in fashion. Moreover, his work lays bare the structural falsehoods of Israel as a state and its brutal destruction of another people. This ensured that his film circulated primarily among the already converted.

There’s another layer of irony. Eyal Sivan was not born an anti-Zionist—nor were Ilan Pappé, Ella Shohat, Michel Warschawski, or other Israelis like them opposed to the Zionist project and occupation. Their positions evolved over time, each following their own course, shaped by personal, political, and ethical reckonings. That’s why I return to the closing question of my previous article: Why can’t “No Other Land” be seen as the most pivotal step in Yuval Abraham’s own political transformation?

Yuval Abraham and others like him are partners in the struggle against racism and occupation; they are not enemies or adversaries. He represents a textbook case of an Israeli beginning to sever ties with his state—even before committing what is seen by many Israelis as the ultimate betrayal: making a film that documents Israeli crimes in the occupied West Bank. He may be especially suited to this path precisely because he was already ostracized by Israeli society long before the film, its awards, or international fame.

Abraham’s transformation began before the film. It began with resistance, not art. It began with his presence at all hours and in all conditions on Palestinian land, to stand in solidarity with residents facing home demolitions and confront Israeli bulldozers and military vehicles. Such presence carried real physical risk.

His grounding in a political struggle against the occupation, even if focused on the West Bank rather than on inside racist Israel itself, gives him a vast horizon for growth. It also gives him the strength to withstand the isolation he is likely to face inside Israel if he continues on this path. And it allows for the possibility that one day, he will see the Israeli state as a grotesque construction that must be dismantled. In its place, a new shared project could emerge that includes him and his friend Basel Adra, one not based on racism, religious supremacy, or fantastical claims to historical rights.

Yuval Abraham, and others like him who fight against racism and occupation, are partners in struggle, not enemies or adversaries. They are the very people who, in Edward Said’s words, have allowed us to “capture their imagination.” They are neither opponents nor those faux-leftist Zionists who seek only cosmetic reforms to beautify their ugly state.

 

The fact that “No Other Land”'s director stands on such a political foundation, even if only partially, draws him closer to the likes of Ilan Pappé, Eyal Sivan, and Ella Shohat. And that alone dismantles the simplistic notion that all citizens of the enemy state are the same, that all are enemies.

That belief has produced two disastrous extremes: one, a paralyzing awe of the supposedly invincible enemy, and the urge to coexist with them at any cost; the other, a fantasy of total victory, the illusion that we can erase all enemies because of our imagined national or divinely ordained superiority.