A Special Jury Prize – And the Israeli Public Response Enables Mine
Warnings by an Anthropic researcher that AI could kill us all took the back seat in the news once NAZA was awarded a special jury prize at the Venice International Film Festival this past weekend. With 24 anonymous interviews of Israeli soldiers, including Intelligence officers, the film presumes to document Israeli forces’ mass killing of Palestinian civilians through the Gaza war. When the prize was announced, the duration of the applause was a record 24 minutes.
The film’s title forms a Hebrew acronym translating into English as “collateral damage” or “incidental harm.” The ambiguity in the distinctions may be intentional. If the former applies to civilian victims of war and the latter to the impact on Israel’s international relations. Either term sounds understated. Not so, the public reaction in Israel.
Directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor are not novices at drawing such fire. Their film, No Other Land, drew its share of harsh criticism from Israelis when it won the 2024 Oscar for a documentary. That film showing Israeli destruction in Masafer Yata in the West Bank is heart-wrenching. I have not seen Naza yet, and I may abstain.
But I won’t join the chorus of criticism of the film. I want to criticize the criticism, the response to it winning such a prestigious prize. Israeli critics roared in anger over the damage it does to Israel. Not because they claimed it was a case of hanging dirty laundry out in public (which would be an offensively mild way to speak of Israel’s excessive killing of civilians in Gaza). Such a claim, nevertheless, would have been an acknowledgement that there is something rotten in the State of Israel.
Some critics stated a disclaimer – that they didn’t see the movie – before hurrying to condemn if for done to Israel. Others, regardless of seeing the film (mostly not) discredited its sources, considering their anonymity. Some suggested the 24 interviewees could be two or three people claiming to be different people for the purpose of their fabrications.
Israel’s Minister of Culture wasted no time in announcing he would seek to have Abraham’s and Szor’s Israeli citizenship revoked. Now there’s a headline and a score of interviews to follow when elections are imminent. He doesn’t need to see the movie to draw his conclusions. Freedom of expression and the use of arts such as filmmaking have long been secondary to his agenda.
At least the call by the IDF Chief of Staff for a legal probe into leaking classified material reflects a procedural approach to a reasonable concern.
Of course, I’m concerned about disclosure of classified information, but I am equally concerned about artistic license and expression. These are values we fight for when we fight to uphold democratic principles. This is a great example of how easily Israeli politicians and influencers lose sight of that in the name of security and defense – without grounds.
One minor qualification regarding the movie I haven’t seen: criticizing the actions of the government of Israel and the IDF executing government policies is distinct from recognizing the atrocity of the massacre by Hamas on October 7 in Israel. Is it required to mention one whenever addressing the other? It has begun to appear that way. Perhaps because we have been given good reason to lose faith that people hold both ideas, that people will contain complexity.
Finally, after reading the op-ed by Israeli journalist, Raviv Drucker, in Ha’aretz, I feel comfortable articulating a troubling thought to which I have only alluded in the past when speaking about Israeli society ultimately confronting the horrors of its actions in Gaza. Drucker watched the movie, endorses the professionalism of the filmmakers, yet spares them little criticism. Apologetically, he asserts that his criticism may reflect an innate compulsion to be defensive on Israel’s behalf.
Certainly, between Gaza and the West Bank, Israeli policy contributes enough to the drastically declining international support it once enjoyed. Incidental harm from this film can hardly be of great significance in that arena. Drucker however describes the actual experience of watching the movie as feeling like a German living during World War II and hearing about what his people were doing. It was the power of that feeling that contributed to his need to explain and be defensive, even if not in complete denial. I wonder, too, if the name of the film aroused any extremely uncomfortable sensations by association. We will have to confront all of this and move forward. Israel can’t afford election results in any way comparable to the recent election results in Saxony.
–
Harriet Gimpel – September 14, 2026
