Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar announced Sunday evening that he will work to revoke the Israeli citizenship of “NAZA” filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, following the film’s special jury prize win at the Venice Film Festival and what he called a “blood libel” it presents against Israeli soldiers and the State of Israel. The prize was confirmed Saturday night during the festival’s closing ceremony.
“The victory of the despicable film ‘NAZA’ at the Venice Film Festival is shocking,” Zohar said. “The burning self-hatred of creators willing to harm their homeland to receive applause from antisemites around the world is incomprehensible and constitutes treason against the state.” The minister added: “This is exactly why I led the important cinema reform—so that Israeli citizens will no longer pay out of their pockets for attacks on IDF soldiers and the State of Israel.” He concluded: “As culture minister, I will act immediately to revoke the Israeli citizenship of these vile creators for treason against the state.”
“NAZA is an 80-minute documentary based on interviews with 24 Israelis who allegedly served in the IDF and intelligence services. The interviewees’ identities are concealed, and through their testimonies Abraham and Szor seek to portray the activities of Israeli forces in Gaza as a system responsible for deliberate and widespread harm to Gaza residents. This isn’t just interpretation from reviews of the film: in the Venice Film Festival’s official synopsis itself, it’s claimed that the film exposes the systems behind what is termed there “the calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza” by Israel.
The blood libel against IDF soldiers received an exceptional embrace in Venice: the film won the special jury prize, and at its premiere the audience stood and applauded for about 25 minutes, with PLO flags waved during the ovation. The IDF rejected the claims made in the film “entirely,” clarified that the identity and roles of the anonymous interviewees cannot be verified, and stated that decisions regarding the selection and approval of strikes are made by human beings and that technological systems serve only as auxiliary tools.