The manufactured hypocrisy of the progressive left that controls Hollywood and liberal circles is nothing new. Their fondness for (pathetic) useful idiots from among us, who will serve as their mouthpiece to present the argument that there is symmetry between "the Palestinian struggle for liberation from occupation" and the celebration of massacre, rape, burning of children, kidnapping of elderly, women and babies committed by 6000 sadistic madmen on Israeli soil – this fondness is well-known, familiar, and thriving.
It spreads, of course, also in the "liberal" world media (the BBC and its persistent struggle in favor of the "Israeli oppression" narrative as the root of all sin in the Middle East – if not the entire world); and in international diplomatic circles (UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who a week after Oct. 7 went so far as to demand everyone remember that it didn't happen in a "vacuum"); and needless to mention the antisemitic rampage and the incomprehensible eclipse in Western academic circles.
All these, as mentioned, are not new issues, and we have become accustomed to them – to our misfortune and astonishment – since Oct. 7. The win of "No Other Land" for Best Documentary Feature Film at the Oscars is what's called: another cherry on the poisoned whipped cream that the West is glazing over its cake of insensitivity and distortion regarding Israel.
But the automatic vilification of Yuval Abraham, the Israeli director of the film, is just as predictable and known in advance. Abraham deeply believes that "Israel's sins," according to his view, are both the cause and effect of the monstrous massacre, and his Palestinian partners in the film are nothing but decoration for him – no less than for Hollywood – to pin on the ridiculous bow tie that everyone wears at this irrelevant event.
Israel's real internal challenge is not to lash out against Yuval Abraham and find every way to denounce him. Israel's real internal challenge is to insist on a clear formulation of the Israeli narrative, to refine our message when encountering those entities.
We will not succeed in moving Yuval Abraham and his like from their opinions and their path, and there is no need to try to do so, or to distance him from us as if he doesn't exist among us. He and others like him walk among us and enjoy freedom of creation and expression, as well as government funding. In many aspects, this is actually evidence of the strength of Israeli democracy and the true pluralism practiced here.
Israel's real internal challenge is to formulate a reasoned narrative, backed by evidence and decisive facts to present to the world – in other words: Hasbara. Because more than anything else, this film's Oscar win testifies to the devastating failure of Israeli public diplomacy in the past year and a half, and our inability to present the world with media (but also artistic and documentary ones) that would present the Israeli story convincingly and solidly. If we set aside the anger and frustration for a moment – we should see this unfortunate event as another national wake-up call for us to invest in public diplomacy much, much, much more.
And if you will: part of Israeli public diplomacy should be using the example of "No Other Land" to show that Israel, unlike its neighbors – chief among them the Palestinians – knows how to give expression to voices like Abraham's.
