Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has joined the chorus of Israeli government officials seeking to punish the directors of the Venice Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize-winning documentary NAZA.
After decrying what he described as “global antisemitic incitement,” Netanyahu said he will be introducing two bills in his country’s parliament, the Knesset.
“We will hit them in their pockets and also in their citizenship, because their place is not among us,” declared Netanyahu. He also described the bills specifically.
“The first: to revoke the citizenship of anyone who slanders IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] soldiers.
Watch on Deadline
“The second: to hit them in the pocket, raising the defamation damages they can be sued for twentyfold.”
The co-directors of NAZA, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, are both Israeli.
The prime minister’s comments followed those of his Culture Minister, Miki Zohar, who also threatened to revoke the filmmakers’ citizenship.
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.”
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 Abraham and Szor, who were also two of the four directors of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.
In NAZA, 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.
Matt Carey contributed to this report.
