On Wednesday, Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner abandoned his threat to evict an art house theater for screening Oscar-winning No Other Land, a film depicting Palestinian relocation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
After rights campaigners and artists complained Meiner’s threat violated free speech, the change was made.
Meiner earlier threatened to evict and stop grant payments to South Beach’s non-profit O Cinema. Meiner’s resolution, released last week, was up for a Wednesday vote by city commissioners.
Most of the seven-member commission and scores of attendees opposed the resolution.
Meiner promised to introduce another resolution to encourage O Cinema to screen movies with “a fair and balanced viewpoint of the current war” at a later meeting.
Meiner deemed the film antisemitic and “one-sided propaganda”. Palestine activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham denied antisemitism in the film.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and others called Meiner’s threat anti-free speech.
No Other Land won the Oscar for documentary feature film but has not been distributed in the US.
The clip shows Israeli soldiers demolishing homes and evicting inhabitants to establish a military training area and Jewish settlers encroaching on the Palestinian village.
After October 2023, Israel’s deadly military attack on Gaza escalated the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which the directors blamed on Washington.
