Two Israelis made a film about how the army decided whom to kill. It won at Venice. The film leaves things out, as did almost everyone who attacked it.
I always used to hate explaining myself. Or explaining anything, really, when I felt it was too obvious to waste words on. There are two words for this sort of attitude: immature and lazy. Israelis don’t have to suffer fools gladly. But they do have to suffer fools, because we all do.
There is something psychologically very abnormal about standing and clapping for 24 minutes. A mixture of catharsis and fear, of Soviet and Hunger Games Panem. Oh, and the photo montage posted on X of the festival director constantly checking his watch to ensure the ovation went on as long as it needed to is pretty damning.
British author Howard Jacobson contends that Europeans are angry at the Jews because the Jews, by surviving, remind Europeans of their role in carrying out the Holocaust. Modern Europeans would like to think of themselves as enlightened and morally upstanding, but the continued existence of Jews shows them that they can't relax into a sense of superiority. So, the theory goes, Europeans project their sins onto Israel, holding it to an exacting standard applied to no other country, and disproportionately blaming it for real or imagined misdeeds, hoping thereby to convey that the Jews are as bad or worse than Europeans have been. The more Europeans want to see themselves as moral, the more the memory of the Holocaust casts its shadow over them, hence the more they have to blame the Jews for everything. In a perverse sense, the Europeans are therefore blaming the Jews for the Holocaust. And that's where we get the outrageous claims of Israel deliberately killing children, Israel selling the organs of dead Palestinians, Israel being irredeemably racist, Israel committing apartheid, and now, worst of all, Israel committing genocide.
I read recently that Clinton could have ordered the killing of bin Laden but was stopped by the US military because of possible collateral damage. So instead of the collateral damage, we had 9/11
From my experience you can confute one, maximum two, reported facts before you are perceived as a lier. It is the hose of libels that is the invincibile technique of Israel haters.
We've learned long ago, and again been reminded the last three years, not to bother. It won't make much difference. We're despised whether rich or poor, losing or winning, poisoning the well or inventing universal cures, etc.
Facts and context don't matter, the world will embrace whichever narrative supports their desired conviction about a people who are small enough in number to be defenseless against blood libles for eternity.
We should live on and do our thing and fuck em. They keep knocking when they need us. Just fuck em.
In the third paragraph of this piece, you say about the film at issue, NAZA, “I should say I haven’t seen it.” Is that correct? You have not seen the movie NAZA?
Your criticisms of both sides make sense, but ultimately we all need to watch this film before making any sweeping conclusions. Yes, an Israeli politician could defend Israel's bombing by talking about the knocking on roof policy, except that there are plenty of examples in Gaza as well as in Lebanon of double knocks, in which the second air strike kills the people who have come to help those injured in the initial strike. And there is a serious issue of Israel making a hundreds of unsubstantiated claims over the past three years without seriously investigating what did happen. Take the most recent example of 55 members of a family being pulled out of the rubble of a building. If Israel really mapped out all these buildings and there was approval to hit that building to kill a really bad person, then show us the receipts: Where was the decision-making process to take the lives of 50+ civilians to kill one, two or more combatants? Who made the approval? If Israel can't show the receipts, and it generally hasn't, then it has a much bigger problem than just hasbara, IMHO.
Not sure how that accusation squares with the detailed analyses of the casualties in Gaza, which demonstrate a civilian:combatant casualty ratio of 1.5:1.
Oh that’s right, math is a Jewish conspiracy. I forgot.
You seeem to be conflating overall statistics with individual data points. Some incidents are only or almost exclusively combatants, while some are only or almost exclusively civiilians. Consider the girl's school in Iran, to take an example outside the Gaza war. That's why I'm asking for more evidence. Who said anything about a conspiracy?
Think of it logically. Given a civilian:combatant ratio of 1.5:1, how many strikes do you think involved the killing of many dozens of civilians? When Deif was targeted the IDF allowed up to 100 incidental casualties, given his importance - and even that included dozens of terrorists. And this was a rare case, with none other even close to these numbers, according to the IDF. So right away the lies of “up to 500 casualties for a single target”, and deliberate targeting of multiple civilians, are exposed. Again, if this were normal practice, the number of civilian casualties would be 10x-100x the number.
Could there have been accidental identifications, like with the girls school in Iran situated in a military compound, based on outdated intelligence? Sure. But that’s not what this Nazi propaganda film is claiming.
In fact, Israel would be in violation of international law if it did not meticulously plan out every bombing, with expected casualties. That’s exactly what the law requires. Only for the Jews are their actions twisted and perverted in a grotesque inversion parody of morality.
Welcome to history. So what’s new…. Wherever you go, there you are.
I haven't seen the film, so I can't speak to the individual accusations other than what's in the trailer. I don't think the filmmakers helped their cause by not consulting with people like Sarit Zehavi, who wrote an excellent blog post in the Times of Israel explaining how the IDF determines whether to strike a target involving civilian casualties and who approves it, and by not getting a response from the IDF, even if as documentarians that's not their "job".
At the same time, I am more reticent to make accusations about people I don't know because I am aware of the underlying emotions involved in this film and in the reactions to it. I have been deeply upset for 3 years: upset by the massacre, upset by my son having to spend 2 months in miluim, partly in Gaza; upset by my daughter having to spend a year in miluim and the possible trauma she felt; and upset by the reports written by my colleagues who also risked their lives as combat reservists but then bravely reported on the darker side of Israel's war in Gaza.
I know soldiers and friends who were convinced they saw burnt bodies of babies, even though Israel itself didn't report any such incidents, and I know a little about how the human brain works and how memory is faultier than we acknowledge. So, I could imagine that soldiers got confused and, scarred by their trauma, misremember what they witnessed. I wouldn't be so grandiose as to claim to know all 24 people were conspiring with the filmmakers to make an anti-Israel propaganda film. I would venture a guess, without knowing for sure, that the more likely scenario is that they believe what they say and are sharing their stories to save Israel from itself, which they believe is committing war crimes.
And that brings me back to the question of how we evaluate the accusations. Considering that many soldiers' stories from the U.S. war in Vietnam and the Troubles in Ireland, just to name two conflicts, were initially denied by their respective governments but later acknowledged, I don't think it's a stretch to assume that at least some of the stories told in this film have at least a kernel of truth if not more. Hence, as a taxpaying Israeli, I would like to see them investigated by an independent commission. Fear of the truth has never served any democracy well.
On a technical note, you assume the 1.5:1 ratio is correct, but why? All militaries, even those of democracies, have historically overoptimistically estimated their kill ratios. To wit, Halevi claimed the IDF had killed "close to 20,000" terrorists in Jan. 2025, making a 1.5:1 ratio, but by the time i updated the estimate to 25,000, the Gaza death toll had risen to nearly 72,000, making a 1.8:1 ratio. Even if you deduct a few thousand for those recovered from the rubble, that leaves a 4:1 ratio for 2025. I find that statistic very troubling.
We like to think we are logical thinkers, but the reality is we are all motivated reasoners, me included. We have emotions and then we try to rationalize them. That's why we need to be most skeptical when we are most emotional about strong beliefs. And that goes for the testimonies as well. Subject to cognitive biases, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that some of those soldiers misinterpreted the information before them because they had become convinced that Israel was committing war crimes. Meanwhile, the filmmakers were not skeptical enough because of their own biases, partly rooted in knowledge of war crimes Israel has definitely or allegedly committed, which made the testimonies more credible, even ones that others find far-fetched or implausible.
Like I've tried to explain, I am not certain about the verity of the accusations, but to me there is enough evidence from credible sources that merit listening to these soldiers and investigating their allegations.
Gain recognition for these lost souls of the Jewish people.
Cast a wide net over all of us still bewildered, grieving, enraged by its obscene charges with no context, the shamelessness of it all.
“And for the slanderers let there be no hope; May You speedily uproot, smash, cast down and humble the wanton sinners.”
We recite this prayer three times a day, six days a week. It’s the 19th blessing of our personal, silent devotion to HaShem.
It’s over two thousand years old.
Our sage’s knew that it would always be relevant. There will always be heretics who endanger Israel and K’lal Yisrael (the entire Jewish people).
Yet, we’re still here, and it will always be so. These 2 will also fade into their own darkness.
I’ll end with the story of Yehuda Vidovsky, recently passed away at age 107, the oldest Holocaust survivor living in Israel. Survivor of the Lodz ghetto, Auschwitz, and the notorious Gross-Rosen work camp where my own father-in-law was also imprisoned in daily torture. He lost everything and everyone. In short, he survived, rebuilt his life in our Promised Land, and dedicated the rest of his life to mapping the burial plots of those who died in the Lodz ghetto, and, with his friend Yosef Buchman, restored more than 7,000 headstones and raised memorials for roughly 7,000 of the dead. He traveled to Poland dozens of times to complete his task. He said his revenge on the Nazis, was that they lost, and, that we have the State of Israel, that we are free and strong, and nobody can destroy us anymore.
A true light to our nation, the Jewish People.
This NAZA documentary raises me from my slumber, like hearing the sounds of the shofer, to rededicate my life to kedushah HaShem.
where a counter attack should take place ? Also after centuries of humiliating dhimi status and culminating in the modern period in outright murderous attacks of annihilation it should be understandable that some Israeli soldiers might become unhinged . These soldiers need to be soothed and healed not condemned.
A film is made for a reason that is generally established by the film maker. I am confused by the motivations of the film makers in this case. Even if there were issues to be addressed why would you contemplate a narrative based on unidentified sources and singular admonitions and that lacks any semblance of nuance.
We all know the power of the image coupled with the appropriate voice and particularly of music to engender emotion.
In moments like this I recall the story of a woman who mistakenly attends the wrong funeral and is brought to tears by the eulogy and accompanying music.
Nothing is easier than the manipulation of human feeling.
Nadav Lapid is not the best example for your thesis, because he also won a jury prize, in an equally prestigious European festival. Lapid's "Ahed's Knee" film had its world premiere only 5 years ago, at the main competition of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize.
Further, "Ahed's Knee"'s storyline is all about the suppression of Israeli films by the Israeli ministry of culture. From Wikipedia: "Y", a filmmaker, is working on a new film about Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi. He travels to the Arava desert to attend a screening of one of his films at a local library, a government institution. There he meets Yahalom, an official from the Ministry of Culture. She explains he needs to sign a form that defines the subject of his appearance at the screening, a form that offers him a checklist of topics acceptable to the government all of which reflect its right-wing ideology and antipathy to criticism. Y becomes close to Yahalom while exploring how to use her sympathy for a more liberal approach to culture and speech to attack the government's agenda.
This isn’t just a PR failure. I’m going to struggle how to say this but I’ll try. I’m not Jewish or Israeli but have worked in Jerusalem for a couple months since October 7. When I walk the streets on Shabbat and I see all the families I realize that these innocent people are considered the worst of humanity by billions of people around the world. There is no rhyme or reason, simply being Jewish or Israeli is enough, there is no explanation, no PR campaign that will change that. It’s an epochal injustice that will see more death and destruction before this peculiar people finds peace. What Yuval and Rachel don’t realize is that no confession, no admission, no acquiescence, no concession, no negotiation will ever change that part of the world who hate Jews. There is no rock or tree to hide behind. I’m sorry and I will do what I can for you wherever you are, I wish I could do more.
Sadly, the phenomenon of the self hating “kapo Jew” is not uncommon throughout Jewish history. Whether through profound ignorance or some deep seated psychological need (ie Stockholm Syndrome) such individuals turn their backs on their own people, land, culture and history. What they never understand until it is too late is that there is no great success in being on the last train to Auschwitz.
I live here and walking the streets I want to take pictures of old people with walkers, young people walking their dogs, kids on their scooters and ask the world, "These are the evilest people on earth? Really?" Something has gone terribly wrong in the world when the hate thrown at Israelis and Jews is so normalized without reflection.
I always used to hate explaining myself. Or explaining anything, really, when I felt it was too obvious to waste words on. There are two words for this sort of attitude: immature and lazy. Israelis don’t have to suffer fools gladly. But they do have to suffer fools, because we all do.
https://quillette.com/author/jeffrey/
There is something psychologically very abnormal about standing and clapping for 24 minutes. A mixture of catharsis and fear, of Soviet and Hunger Games Panem. Oh, and the photo montage posted on X of the festival director constantly checking his watch to ensure the ovation went on as long as it needed to is pretty damning.
British author Howard Jacobson contends that Europeans are angry at the Jews because the Jews, by surviving, remind Europeans of their role in carrying out the Holocaust. Modern Europeans would like to think of themselves as enlightened and morally upstanding, but the continued existence of Jews shows them that they can't relax into a sense of superiority. So, the theory goes, Europeans project their sins onto Israel, holding it to an exacting standard applied to no other country, and disproportionately blaming it for real or imagined misdeeds, hoping thereby to convey that the Jews are as bad or worse than Europeans have been. The more Europeans want to see themselves as moral, the more the memory of the Holocaust casts its shadow over them, hence the more they have to blame the Jews for everything. In a perverse sense, the Europeans are therefore blaming the Jews for the Holocaust. And that's where we get the outrageous claims of Israel deliberately killing children, Israel selling the organs of dead Palestinians, Israel being irredeemably racist, Israel committing apartheid, and now, worst of all, Israel committing genocide.
https://substack.com/@tritaparsi/note/c-325537406?r=1s4fby
Show the 47 minutes
I read recently that Clinton could have ordered the killing of bin Laden but was stopped by the US military because of possible collateral damage. So instead of the collateral damage, we had 9/11
From my experience you can confute one, maximum two, reported facts before you are perceived as a lier. It is the hose of libels that is the invincibile technique of Israel haters.
In the fourth paragraph, you write that you have not seen the movie Naza. Is that correct? You have not seen the movie Naza?
We've learned long ago, and again been reminded the last three years, not to bother. It won't make much difference. We're despised whether rich or poor, losing or winning, poisoning the well or inventing universal cures, etc.
Facts and context don't matter, the world will embrace whichever narrative supports their desired conviction about a people who are small enough in number to be defenseless against blood libles for eternity.
We should live on and do our thing and fuck em. They keep knocking when they need us. Just fuck em.
In the third paragraph of this piece, you say about the film at issue, NAZA, “I should say I haven’t seen it.” Is that correct? You have not seen the movie NAZA?
Your criticisms of both sides make sense, but ultimately we all need to watch this film before making any sweeping conclusions. Yes, an Israeli politician could defend Israel's bombing by talking about the knocking on roof policy, except that there are plenty of examples in Gaza as well as in Lebanon of double knocks, in which the second air strike kills the people who have come to help those injured in the initial strike. And there is a serious issue of Israel making a hundreds of unsubstantiated claims over the past three years without seriously investigating what did happen. Take the most recent example of 55 members of a family being pulled out of the rubble of a building. If Israel really mapped out all these buildings and there was approval to hit that building to kill a really bad person, then show us the receipts: Where was the decision-making process to take the lives of 50+ civilians to kill one, two or more combatants? Who made the approval? If Israel can't show the receipts, and it generally hasn't, then it has a much bigger problem than just hasbara, IMHO.
Not sure how that accusation squares with the detailed analyses of the casualties in Gaza, which demonstrate a civilian:combatant casualty ratio of 1.5:1.
Oh that’s right, math is a Jewish conspiracy. I forgot.
You seeem to be conflating overall statistics with individual data points. Some incidents are only or almost exclusively combatants, while some are only or almost exclusively civiilians. Consider the girl's school in Iran, to take an example outside the Gaza war. That's why I'm asking for more evidence. Who said anything about a conspiracy?
Think of it logically. Given a civilian:combatant ratio of 1.5:1, how many strikes do you think involved the killing of many dozens of civilians? When Deif was targeted the IDF allowed up to 100 incidental casualties, given his importance - and even that included dozens of terrorists. And this was a rare case, with none other even close to these numbers, according to the IDF. So right away the lies of “up to 500 casualties for a single target”, and deliberate targeting of multiple civilians, are exposed. Again, if this were normal practice, the number of civilian casualties would be 10x-100x the number.
Could there have been accidental identifications, like with the girls school in Iran situated in a military compound, based on outdated intelligence? Sure. But that’s not what this Nazi propaganda film is claiming.
In fact, Israel would be in violation of international law if it did not meticulously plan out every bombing, with expected casualties. That’s exactly what the law requires. Only for the Jews are their actions twisted and perverted in a grotesque inversion parody of morality.
Welcome to history. So what’s new…. Wherever you go, there you are.
I haven't seen the film, so I can't speak to the individual accusations other than what's in the trailer. I don't think the filmmakers helped their cause by not consulting with people like Sarit Zehavi, who wrote an excellent blog post in the Times of Israel explaining how the IDF determines whether to strike a target involving civilian casualties and who approves it, and by not getting a response from the IDF, even if as documentarians that's not their "job".
At the same time, I am more reticent to make accusations about people I don't know because I am aware of the underlying emotions involved in this film and in the reactions to it. I have been deeply upset for 3 years: upset by the massacre, upset by my son having to spend 2 months in miluim, partly in Gaza; upset by my daughter having to spend a year in miluim and the possible trauma she felt; and upset by the reports written by my colleagues who also risked their lives as combat reservists but then bravely reported on the darker side of Israel's war in Gaza.
I know soldiers and friends who were convinced they saw burnt bodies of babies, even though Israel itself didn't report any such incidents, and I know a little about how the human brain works and how memory is faultier than we acknowledge. So, I could imagine that soldiers got confused and, scarred by their trauma, misremember what they witnessed. I wouldn't be so grandiose as to claim to know all 24 people were conspiring with the filmmakers to make an anti-Israel propaganda film. I would venture a guess, without knowing for sure, that the more likely scenario is that they believe what they say and are sharing their stories to save Israel from itself, which they believe is committing war crimes.
And that brings me back to the question of how we evaluate the accusations. Considering that many soldiers' stories from the U.S. war in Vietnam and the Troubles in Ireland, just to name two conflicts, were initially denied by their respective governments but later acknowledged, I don't think it's a stretch to assume that at least some of the stories told in this film have at least a kernel of truth if not more. Hence, as a taxpaying Israeli, I would like to see them investigated by an independent commission. Fear of the truth has never served any democracy well.
On a technical note, you assume the 1.5:1 ratio is correct, but why? All militaries, even those of democracies, have historically overoptimistically estimated their kill ratios. To wit, Halevi claimed the IDF had killed "close to 20,000" terrorists in Jan. 2025, making a 1.5:1 ratio, but by the time i updated the estimate to 25,000, the Gaza death toll had risen to nearly 72,000, making a 1.8:1 ratio. Even if you deduct a few thousand for those recovered from the rubble, that leaves a 4:1 ratio for 2025. I find that statistic very troubling.
We like to think we are logical thinkers, but the reality is we are all motivated reasoners, me included. We have emotions and then we try to rationalize them. That's why we need to be most skeptical when we are most emotional about strong beliefs. And that goes for the testimonies as well. Subject to cognitive biases, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that some of those soldiers misinterpreted the information before them because they had become convinced that Israel was committing war crimes. Meanwhile, the filmmakers were not skeptical enough because of their own biases, partly rooted in knowledge of war crimes Israel has definitely or allegedly committed, which made the testimonies more credible, even ones that others find far-fetched or implausible.
Like I've tried to explain, I am not certain about the verity of the accusations, but to me there is enough evidence from credible sources that merit listening to these soldiers and investigating their allegations.
NAZA has achieved its goal:
Gain recognition for these lost souls of the Jewish people.
Cast a wide net over all of us still bewildered, grieving, enraged by its obscene charges with no context, the shamelessness of it all.
“And for the slanderers let there be no hope; May You speedily uproot, smash, cast down and humble the wanton sinners.”
We recite this prayer three times a day, six days a week. It’s the 19th blessing of our personal, silent devotion to HaShem.
It’s over two thousand years old.
Our sage’s knew that it would always be relevant. There will always be heretics who endanger Israel and K’lal Yisrael (the entire Jewish people).
Yet, we’re still here, and it will always be so. These 2 will also fade into their own darkness.
I’ll end with the story of Yehuda Vidovsky, recently passed away at age 107, the oldest Holocaust survivor living in Israel. Survivor of the Lodz ghetto, Auschwitz, and the notorious Gross-Rosen work camp where my own father-in-law was also imprisoned in daily torture. He lost everything and everyone. In short, he survived, rebuilt his life in our Promised Land, and dedicated the rest of his life to mapping the burial plots of those who died in the Lodz ghetto, and, with his friend Yosef Buchman, restored more than 7,000 headstones and raised memorials for roughly 7,000 of the dead. He traveled to Poland dozens of times to complete his task. He said his revenge on the Nazis, was that they lost, and, that we have the State of Israel, that we are free and strong, and nobody can destroy us anymore.
A true light to our nation, the Jewish People.
This NAZA documentary raises me from my slumber, like hearing the sounds of the shofer, to rededicate my life to kedushah HaShem.
G’Mar Chatima Tova. Ahm Yisrael Chai.
Why is Israel put in position to have decide
where a counter attack should take place ? Also after centuries of humiliating dhimi status and culminating in the modern period in outright murderous attacks of annihilation it should be understandable that some Israeli soldiers might become unhinged . These soldiers need to be soothed and healed not condemned.
A film is made for a reason that is generally established by the film maker. I am confused by the motivations of the film makers in this case. Even if there were issues to be addressed why would you contemplate a narrative based on unidentified sources and singular admonitions and that lacks any semblance of nuance.
We all know the power of the image coupled with the appropriate voice and particularly of music to engender emotion.
In moments like this I recall the story of a woman who mistakenly attends the wrong funeral and is brought to tears by the eulogy and accompanying music.
Nothing is easier than the manipulation of human feeling.
Nadav Lapid is not the best example for your thesis, because he also won a jury prize, in an equally prestigious European festival. Lapid's "Ahed's Knee" film had its world premiere only 5 years ago, at the main competition of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize.
Further, "Ahed's Knee"'s storyline is all about the suppression of Israeli films by the Israeli ministry of culture. From Wikipedia: "Y", a filmmaker, is working on a new film about Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi. He travels to the Arava desert to attend a screening of one of his films at a local library, a government institution. There he meets Yahalom, an official from the Ministry of Culture. She explains he needs to sign a form that defines the subject of his appearance at the screening, a form that offers him a checklist of topics acceptable to the government all of which reflect its right-wing ideology and antipathy to criticism. Y becomes close to Yahalom while exploring how to use her sympathy for a more liberal approach to culture and speech to attack the government's agenda.
This isn’t just a PR failure. I’m going to struggle how to say this but I’ll try. I’m not Jewish or Israeli but have worked in Jerusalem for a couple months since October 7. When I walk the streets on Shabbat and I see all the families I realize that these innocent people are considered the worst of humanity by billions of people around the world. There is no rhyme or reason, simply being Jewish or Israeli is enough, there is no explanation, no PR campaign that will change that. It’s an epochal injustice that will see more death and destruction before this peculiar people finds peace. What Yuval and Rachel don’t realize is that no confession, no admission, no acquiescence, no concession, no negotiation will ever change that part of the world who hate Jews. There is no rock or tree to hide behind. I’m sorry and I will do what I can for you wherever you are, I wish I could do more.
Sadly, the phenomenon of the self hating “kapo Jew” is not uncommon throughout Jewish history. Whether through profound ignorance or some deep seated psychological need (ie Stockholm Syndrome) such individuals turn their backs on their own people, land, culture and history. What they never understand until it is too late is that there is no great success in being on the last train to Auschwitz.
I live here and walking the streets I want to take pictures of old people with walkers, young people walking their dogs, kids on their scooters and ask the world, "These are the evilest people on earth? Really?" Something has gone terribly wrong in the world when the hate thrown at Israelis and Jews is so normalized without reflection.