Before We Decide What is True

I have not seen the documentary NAZA. Neither, it turns out, have most of the people who have already decided what it means.

The documentary, made by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor,
premiered at the Venice International Film Festival on September 10 to a 25-minute
standing ovation, a festival record, and two days later won the Special Jury Prize. Its
title is the Hebrew military acronym for collateral damage, nezek agavi: the number of
civilian deaths deemed acceptable when striking a military target. The film is built on
the testimony of 24 anonymous Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers describing how
those numbers were set in Gaza.

Within days, the film had become two things at once: a brave act of conscience to its
admirers, and a catastrophe for Israel’s image to its critics. What it had not become, for
almost anyone, was something they had actually watched.

The best marketing campaign money can’t buy

Before most of the world could see a single frame, NAZA had already won something
bigger than a jury prize. It won the argument about whether it matters.

In the Columbia Journalism Review, Amos Barshad documented how little of the fury
rests on viewing: almost no one has seen the film, yet Israel has condemned it anyway.
Even the IDF, Haaretz reported, had not decided whether to investigate, because
officials had not watched it. CJR chronicled the condemnation. My concern is what that
condemnation has bought.

Consider what happened. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed legislation
allowing citizenship revocation for those who defame IDF personnel, plus a twentyfold
increase in defamation fines. He faulted the opposition for not condemning the film,
though neither he nor they had seen it. Culture Minister Miki Zohar accused the
filmmakers of treason, called for their citizenship to be revoked and asked Shin Bet chief
David Zini to investigate their sources.

Every one of those moves was a press release for the film

A documentary about military targeting procedures, however powerful, is a hard sell.
Yet NAZA arrives with a story attached: the film a government tried to punish. That
story sells tickets. NAZA opens in New York on September 30 and across the United
States on October 9, part of a theatrical rollout in more than 50 countries, and it will
stream free online in November. Their previous film, No Other Land, won the 2025
Oscar for Best Documentary yet never found an American distributor and was
effectively self-released. This one reaches American theaters three weeks after its
premiere. The uproar has done the selling.

Here is what should worry everyone, on every side. The fame came first. The facts have
not arrived yet. As the film reaches theaters, audiences will not walk in neutral. They
will walk in already told what to feel. The controversy did not just promote the film. It
pre-wrote the reviews.

The verdict came first

Even careful commentators fall into it. In The Jerusalem Post, veteran columnist Susan
Hattis Rolef called Israel’s reaction wildly disproportionate, then acknowledged that,
like most people weighing in, she had not seen the film. She relied on sources she
trusted and inferred the rest. Her honesty reveals the problem: if a seasoned writer forms conclusions second hand, what chance does the average reader have?

Military sources have disputed parts of the film’s accuracy, based on reports from people
who did see it. So the rebuttal is secondhand too. It is the children’s game of telephone
played by governments and pundits: a whisper passes from ear to ear, and by the time it
reaches the last player, it bears little resemblance to what was said. This whisper began
in a Venice screening room, and now a nation is repeating what it thinks it heard. Except in this version, most of the players never heard the first whisper at all.

Applause in Venice is not verification. A minister’s fury, the most revealing moment, came from a journalist who did his job. Channel 13’s Raviv Drucker watched the film and came away with reservations. But when Abraham argued that NAZA might not have been needed had Israel’s free press examined collateral damage early in the war, Drucker, by Rolef’s account, conceded he was right. Not enough had been done.

When journalists do not investigate, someone else tells the story, and the first version
heard becomes the one believed. The answer to a one-sided film is not a law punishing its makers. It is a press that asks the hard questions first, and a public willing to wait for answers.

Facts, not TikTok

This is how opinion is made now: not in the screening room, but in the feed, through a trophy photo, a politician’s furious post, an influencer’s summary of a summary.

I am aware of the paradox. This column, too, is about a film I have not seen. In writing it, I add one more voice to the chorus I am questioning, and perhaps one more ticket to the box office. But there is a difference between judging a film and examining how we judge. I am not telling you what NAZA shows. I am asking how so many became certain before they could know.

I will watch NAZA when I can. I may find it compelling. I may find it misleading. I may find it both. What I will not do is pretend I already know.

Educated conclusions require evidence, time and the humility to say, “I haven’t seen it yet.” Every time we skip that step, the next story, true or false, becomes accepted truth simply because it traveled faster.

Before we decide what is true, we should at least look.

Karen Lehmann is a journalist, award winning videographer, photographer and columnist based in Washington, D.C. She writes on American politics, public policy, Israel and culture as a blogger for The Times of Israel and a columnist for Man and Culture. A former New Yorker, she served on the New York Philharmonic’s volunteer council, focused on education, and spent some 20 years teaching children to appreciate classical music.