The day after Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor‘s bombshell Israeli documentary NAZA alleging the Israeli army targeted civilians in Gaza won the Special Jury Prize at Venice, Israel‘s Culture Minister Miki Zohar announced that he would “act immediately to revoke the Israeli citizenship” of the directing duo.
According to a translation provided by X, Zohar went on to call the film “vile” and the Venice Film Festival honor “shocking.” He continued, “The self-loathing that burns in the creators, who are willing to harm their homeland just to get applause from antisemites around the world, is inconceivable and constitutes a betrayal of the state.”
You can read a translation of Zohar’s full statement below.
The win of the vile film NZA [sic] at the Venice Festival is shocking. The self-loathing that burns in the creators, who are willing to harm their homeland just to get applause from antisemites around the world, is inconceivable and constitutes a betrayal of the state. This is exactly the reason I led the important reform in cinema so that Israeli citizens will no longer have to pay from their own pockets for the harm to IDF soldiers and the State of Israel. As Minister of Culture, I will act immediately to revoke the Israeli citizenship of these despicable creators for betraying the state.
NAZA, a late addition to the competition lineup in Venice, received a record 25-minute standing ovation at its premiere there. On Saturday night, it won the festival’s Special Jury Prize. The film is directed by Israeli Jews Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, two of the four directors of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land. Abraham appears on camera, interviewing his subjects on the rooftop; they explain that “NAZA” is a Hebrew acronym used by the Israel Defense Forces to signify collateral damage (נזק אגבי, or Nezek Agavi, per an interview included in press notes), in other words, an acceptable loss of civilian life incurred while trying to kill suspected Hamas militants. The film suggests the number of “NAZA” considered acceptable in each attack was elastic. In some cases, it would be under a dozen, but in others it could be 200 or even 500 people deemed permissible collateral damage, according to Israeli military personnel interviewed in the film.
On Friday, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett criticized NAZA and its filmmakers, saying in a statement that that he is “proud” and “deeply grateful” to the Israeli reservists and soldiers “standing between us and that next massacre.” He added, “To portray them as perpetrators of ‘genocide’ is not courageous art. It is a cowardly blood libel.”
Zohar has accused the Israeli film of betrayal before. In July, he released a video denouncing filmmakers who used government funds to criticize the country.
“For years, the formula was simple: Defame Israel and receive a check from the government,” Zohar said the video, before pledging, “Not anymore.” The minister went on to promise he would move “our money from films that Israel haters love to films that Israelis love…This is the end of the era where Israeli soldiers are blackened at the expense of Israeli citizens.”
