Florida mayor seeks to evict cinema for screening Israeli-Palestinian film

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Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner is pushing to evict the art house cinema O Cinema from city property after it screened No Other Land, an Oscar-winning film about Israeli displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank

WASHINGTON, USA – Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner has sought to evict an art house cinema from city property for screening Oscar-winning No Other Land, a film about the Israeli displacement of a Palestinian community in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

He also wants to halt future grant payments to the non-profit O Cinema in South Beach. City commissioners are expected to vote on legislation introduced by Meiner next week, according to a resolution document made public on Thursday.

Meiner has described the movie as one-sided propaganda and an attack on Jewish people, while the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and other civil rights advocates have condemned his actions as being against free speech.

The film’s co-directors, Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, dismiss allegations that it is antisemitic.

Kareem Tabsch, co-founder of O Cinema, told Axios the non-profit was “hoping to engage in a thoughtful conversation with our mayor and elected officials,” before the vote.

But the cinema was willing to take “whatever avenues” necessary to remain in South Beach and would seek to protect its freedom of expression and right to exist, Tabsch was quoted as saying.

Reuters was not able to immediately reach Tabsch for comment.

Despite winning the Oscar for documentary feature film this month, No Other Land has not been picked up by mainstream US distributors.

The film shows Israeli soldiers tearing down homes and evicting residents to create a military training ground and the encroachment of Jewish settlers on the Palestinian community.

On October 7, 2023, Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. The bloodshed triggered the latest phase of a decades-old conflict.

Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed over 48,000 Palestinians, Gaza officials say, while internally displacing Gaza’s entire population, causing a hunger crisis and leading to accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies.

O Cinema’s website, as of Thursday, listed upcoming screenings of the film on March 19-20.

Meiner’s actions were reported earlier by the Miami Herald. – Rappler.com