Congratulations, Israel.
Apparently fighting Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran and an international propaganda machine wasn’t enough.
We have once again discovered our unique national superpower: producing Jewish Israelis willing to manufacture the ammunition and then politely hand it to the enemy.
Welcome to NAZA.
The title comes from nezek agavi, Hebrew for “collateral damage.” The documentary focuses on Israeli military targeting in Gaza and allegations concerning the civilian casualties associated with those strikes.
And this isn’t some obscure YouTube video filmed between two people arguing over hummus.
NAZA was made for the international documentary circuit, where criticizing Israel has somehow developed into its own cinematic genre.
The film uses testimony from Israeli military and intelligence insiders, including anonymous sources, to construct a deeply damning picture of how Israel has conducted parts of the Gaza war. It examines targeting decisions, intelligence, technology and the calculations surrounding anticipated civilian casualties.
The documentary then received one of the most valuable commodities available in the international cultural marketplace:
An award for Israelis accusing Israel.
It premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival and received the Special Jury Prize.
Naturally.
Because apparently Europe had an empty shelf marked “Israeli tells us Israel is terrible”, and somebody urgently needed to fill it.
And that is precisely why the people behind NAZA should know better.
These aren’t confused tourists who accidentally wandered into the Middle East after taking the wrong Ryanair flight.
They are Israelis.
They understand Hebrew.
They understand Israeli society.
They understand October 7.
They understand what Hamas did.
They understand what happened in the kibbutzim.
They understand the hostages.
They understand that Israeli soldiers entered Gaza because thousands of terrorists invaded Israel, murdered civilians and dragged human beings across the border.
And, most importantly, they understand perfectly well how accusations made by Israelis are weaponized internationally.
Yet somehow we’re supposed to believe nobody could have predicted what would happen.
Please.
You could practically write the social-media posts before the documentary premiered.
“EVEN ISRAELIS ADMIT IT.”
“ISRAELI SOLDIERS CONFESS.”
“PROOF.”
“GENOCIDE.”
Context disappears.
Qualifications disappear.
The distinction between allegations and established facts disappears.
The distinction between civilian casualties and deliberately targeting civilians disappears.
October 7 gets pushed somewhere underneath the credits.
And suddenly an Israeli documentary becomes Exhibit A in the prosecution of Israel before an international audience that frequently reached its verdict years before seeing the evidence.
But apparently pointing this out makes one insufficiently sophisticated.
Forgive me.
Perhaps I missed the seminar at which national self-destruction became an advanced form of intellectual enlightenment.
Maybe the filmmakers’ paychecks are personally signed by Haaretz, Peace Now and J Street while a European film-festival committee sends over a complimentary bottle of champagne.
That is sarcasm, before somebody develops a sudden inability to recognize a joke. I have no evidence those organizations funded or paid the filmmakers.
The joke works because the ideological ecosystem is painfully familiar.
Israel does something.
Certain Israeli activists announce that Israel has crossed humanity’s final moral frontier.
Foreign activists quote the Israelis.
European politicians quote the foreign activists quoting the Israelis.
International newspapers report that “Israeli voices” have confirmed the accusation.
Then everybody cites everybody else until an allegation has completed enough laps around the internet to become “established fact.”
It’s the geopolitical equivalent of Wikipedia citing an article that cited Wikipedia.
And somewhere Hamas’s propaganda department gets the afternoon off.
That is what makes this so infuriating.
Israel absolutely must investigate misconduct.
If an Israeli soldier commits a crime, investigate it.
If evidence proves it, prosecute him.
If commanders violate Israeli law, hold them accountable.
That is what democratic countries do.
But there is an enormous intellectual difference between investigating individual misconduct and constructing a sweeping narrative about the machinery of Israeli warfare.
There is also an enormous difference between civilian casualties and deliberately killing civilians.
Wars produce civilian casualties.
Urban wars produce horrific civilian casualties.
And wars against terrorist organizations operating among civilian populations create moral and operational nightmares that documentary audiences sitting safely in Venice will thankfully never have to solve.
A commander does not get a perfect battlefield.
He gets incomplete intelligence.
He gets seconds.
He gets terrorists operating around civilians.
He gets hostages somewhere underground.
He gets soldiers whose lives are also his responsibility.
And afterward, somebody sitting thousands of kilometers away gets several months of editing time, dramatic music and a film-festival audience to explain what he supposedly should have done differently.
How convenient.
Then there is the reliance on anonymous testimony.
Anonymous sources aren’t automatically unreliable. Serious journalism has always used them.
But extraordinary accusations demand extraordinary scrutiny.
What did each witness personally observe?
What was hearsay?
How representative were the incidents?
Were contradictory witnesses interviewed?
Were operational records examined?
Were specific strikes reconstructed?
What intelligence was available before each decision?
What military objectives existed?
What precautions were taken?
Were the allegations isolated incidents, disputed interpretations or actual policy?
Because those distinctions are everything.
You cannot begin with testimony about particular events and casually teleport to conclusions about the moral character of an entire military.
Especially not this military.
The IDF is overwhelmingly composed of ordinary Israelis.
The twenty-year-old reservist isn’t some Hollywood stormtrooper.
He is the guy who fixed your air conditioner last summer.
The intelligence officer might be the woman sitting beside you on the Jerusalem light rail.
The commander could be the father standing next to you at your kid’s school.
These are human beings defending their country after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
And apparently some Israelis have concluded that the urgent moral mission of our generation is making sure Venice understands how suspicious it should be of them.
Brilliant.
Absolutely bloody brilliant.
Meanwhile, Hamas spent years constructing tunnels, embedding military infrastructure within civilian environments and turning Gaza into one of the most grotesquely complicated battlefields imaginable.
That context doesn’t excuse unlawful Israeli conduct.
It explains why determining whether conduct was unlawful requires considerably more analysis than counting bodies and pointing toward Jerusalem.
That distinction apparently isn’t sexy enough for the red carpet.
And this is where my anger becomes something deeper.
The Jewish people finally have sovereignty.
After centuries during which other nations decided whether Jews could live in their cities, enter their universities, practice professions, own property, defend themselves or occasionally remain alive, Jews finally possess the ability to protect Jewish lives.
That ability is called Israel.
It is imperfect because human institutions are imperfect.
It makes mistakes because armies consist of human beings.
It must remain accountable because Jewish sovereignty without Jewish morality would be hollow.
But Jewish morality does not require Jewish helplessness.
And Jewish self-examination does not require publicly feeding every accusation against Israel into an international political machine already overflowing with people desperate to criminalize Jewish self-defense.
So spare me the lectures about courage.
Real courage isn’t merely criticizing Israel in a room where criticizing Israel earns applause.
Sometimes courage means telling that room something it absolutely does not want to hear:
Israel did not start this war.
Israel’s enemies deliberately attack civilians.
Israeli soldiers have a right to come home alive.
Israel has a right to destroy organizations committed to murdering Israelis.
Civilian deaths are tragic, but tragedy is not automatically a war crime.
Anonymous allegations are evidence to investigate, not commandments delivered from Sinai.
And an award at Venice does not transform a filmmaker’s interpretation into historical truth.
So congratulations to NAZA on its prize.
The applause will be thunderous.
The headlines will travel around the world.
Israel’s enemies will quote it for years.
And Israelis will once again be expected to marvel at the courage required to walk into an international cultural establishment deeply suspicious of their country and tell everyone precisely what they already wanted to hear.
I won’t applaud.
Israel should investigate itself ruthlessly.
Israel should punish genuine wrongdoing ruthlessly.
And Israel should defend itself just as ruthlessly.
Because there is nothing enlightened about confusing accountability with national self-flagellation.
And there is certainly nothing brave about handing your enemies ammunition and acting surprised when they load the gun.
Sometimes I think all of history is just a story of Jew vs. Jew. We have great sages, scientists, politicians and humanitarians among us, but also conspirators, traitors and people who with great charisma spread the worst of ideas. I have no doubt that ultimately Hashem's plan for us will prevail, but no matter what we are always on the stage and on both sides of whatever struggle is playing out in the day.
This is exactly what is happening in America as well. Attacks from within and almost one hundred percent affiliated with money and alternative motives. You notice in countries such as Russia, Iran, China, and all Islamic countries this is hidden by death sentences so those using outsiders to destroy internal factions don't live long enough to spread they're libel claims.
Western civilization suffers from freedoms given to their society's. The problem becomes accelerated by global communication such as the Internet where propaganda is counted as truth with absolute no validation.
Western civilization is killing itself in the name of freedom.
It requires intelligent people to distill truth from fiction. Examine the war in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and others then you'll realize Israel did everything far and above all of these prior wars to protect the innocent when they had the full right to fight more intensely without regard to collateral damage. We're there elaborate deep tunnels underground in these other wars underneath hospitals and civilian centers to the extent in Gaza.
Only G-d shall be the final judge in a fractured world as ours. Can you imagine what this world would have been had there not been Judeo-Christian nations to bring peace and civility to a fractured world. May G-d bring justice to this fractured world soon. The true G-d of Abraham Isaac and Jacob 🙏🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸