The Shameful Documentary NAZA

NAZA, a new documentary by Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and filmmaker Rachel Szor, presents serious allegations about Israeli military operations in Gaza.

To this writer, however, NAZA is another propaganda weapon against Israel, created by Israelis whose work risks feeding the hostility already directed at the Jewish state.

In 2025, Abraham and Szor were among the four filmmakers who won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for No Other Land. They made that film with Palestinian co-directors Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal.

Now Abraham and Szor have returned with NAZA.

The documentary says it investigates Israeli military targeting in Gaza and alleges that civilian deaths were knowingly factored into some military decisions.

The filmmakers say they interviewed 24 Israeli military and intelligence sources whose identities were concealed. The filmmakers say those sources describe the use of artificial intelligence and other systems to identify and prioritize targets in Gaza.

Their reported testimony forms the basis of the film’s allegations concerning civilian casualties.

The IDF disputes the documentary’s allegations and questioned claims based on anonymous sources that cannot be independently verified. They say they operate under rules intended to distinguish military targets from civilians and reduce civilian harm.

When Israeli military sources make such grave accusations anonymously, the resulting film deserves scrutiny as well as attention.

If a documentary presents disputed accusations against Israel in a way that contributes to increasing hatred of Israel and Jews elsewhere, we should at least ask where legitimate criticism ends and antisemitic incitement begins.

The Definition of Genocide

The word “genocide” carries an exact and extraordinarily serious meaning.

Under the United Nations Genocide Convention, genocide involves specified acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

Those acts include killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, imposing conditions intended to bring about the group’s physical destruction, preventing births, or forcibly transferring children.

Intent is therefore crucial.

Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.

The attack constituted mass killing and hostage-taking directed overwhelmingly at Israelis.

Hamas’s original 1988 charter called for Israel’s destruction and contained explicitly antisemitic language.

In 2017, Hamas published a new political document that removed some of that language and said its conflict was with Zionism rather than Jews because of their religion. It also accepted the possibility of a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines as a matter of national consensus.

But Hamas did not recognize Israel.

The October 7 attack demonstrated in the most brutal possible way what Israelis face when armed groups cross their borders and deliberately attack civilians.

At the Venice Film Festival

NAZA premiered at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival on September 10, 2026.

The audience gave the film a standing ovation lasting about 25 minutes, reported as a festival record.

Two days later, NAZA received the festival’s Special Jury Prize.

The response abroad contrasted sharply with the reaction among many Israelis.

Backlash at Home

The film triggered an extraordinary backlash in Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called NAZA “shocking incitement” and accused it of contributing to a wave of global antisemitism.

Israeli military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir strongly rejected the film’s allegations and ordered military lawyers to examine possible legal action.

Culture Minister Miki Zohar went further. He called for an examination of whether the filmmakers could be stripped of their Israeli citizenship.

The proposal itself generated opposition inside Israel, including from Israelis who strongly disagreed with the film.

More than 1,000 Israeli filmmakers reportedly signed a petition supporting Abraham and Szor or defending their freedom to make the documentary.

Therein lies the larger argument.

The filmmakers say their work exposes wrongdoing that Israelis need to confront.

Their Israeli critics say the documentary takes disputed and anonymous allegations and presents them in a way that damages the country, its soldiers and Jews around the world.

American Jewish organizations should examine the film closely and challenge any unsupported claims it makes.

Ongoing Repression in Iran

While international attention remains fixed on Israel, Iran continues its violent repression of its own population.

Human-rights organizations say Iranian security forces killed thousands of protesters and bystanders during nationwide anti-government unrest that began in December 2025.

The precise death toll remains difficult to establish because of restrictions on information and independent access.

The repression did not end with the demonstrations.

Human Rights Watch and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center reported that Iranian authorities executed at least 59 men on politically motivated or vague national-security charges between March 18 and the end of August 2026.

At least 29 had been arrested in connection with the December 2025 and January 2026 protests.

Human Rights Watch says Iranian authorities have continued executing protesters and political dissidents on a weekly basis. It has also documented allegations of torture, coerced confessions, summary proceedings and executions carried out without adequate legal protections.

These killings and abuses receive considerably less international attention than accusations directed at Israel.

Clueless About the Holocaust

Only 80 years have passed since the Holocaust.

One-third of the world’s Jewish population was murdered during the Nazi genocide, including about two-thirds of Europe’s Jews.

Yet successive generations inevitably become further removed from those events.

That raises uncomfortable questions.

Do younger Israelis fully understand how quickly hostility toward Jews can escalate?

Do they appreciate how accusations involving Israel can be taken up and transformed by people whose objective has little to do with protecting Palestinian civilians and much more to do with hatred of Jews?

Those questions should not prevent criticism of Israel.

But neither should criticism of Israel be treated as though it exists in a historical vacuum.

Dark Clouds

In 70 AD, Roman forces destroyed Jerusalem after years of political conflict, rebellion and internal division.

History does not repeat itself in precisely the same way.

But division has consequences.

Israel faces hostility from enemies outside its borders while Israelis themselves remain deeply divided over the Gaza war, their government and the conduct of their military.

NAZA has now become part of that division.

Its supporters see courageous whistleblowers exposing wrongdoing.

Its critics see anonymous allegations being transformed into an international indictment of Israel.

The film deserves rigorous examination, particularly because its allegations are so serious.

The filmmakers also bear responsibility for ensuring that accusations of this magnitude can withstand scrutiny.

Criticism of Israel must never become an excuse for hatred of Jews.

And Israelis should remain acutely aware that words, images and accusations created at home can acquire a very different purpose once they travel around the world.

We pray that the guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.