Miami Beach's mayor Steven Mainer is threatening to withdraw funding and evict an independent cinema that has shown the Oscar-winning film "No other land", writes The Guardian.
The documentary is made by both Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers, and shows the consequences of the Israeli settlement policy on the West Bank. It takes place in the village of Masafer Yatta and depicts the destruction of a village, but also the friendship between the Palestinian activist Basel Adra and the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham.
Mainer wanted the cinema to withdraw the film and claimed that it "normalizes hate and spreads anti-Semitism", which the Israeli director Yuval Abraham condemns.
When the mayor uses the word anti-Semitism to silence Palestinians and Israelis who proudly oppose occupation and apartheid together, and fight for justice and equality, he empties the word of meaning, says Abraham.
He claims that the film shows the reality of the occupation and thereby makes it "impossible to justify", and believes that it is therefore that the mayor wants to ban it from being shown.
It won't work. Banning a film only makes people more determined to see it.
The film won an Oscar for best long documentary.
