Israel Minister Moves To Revoke 'NAZA' Filmmakers' Citizenship — SkimNews
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- Miki Zohar, Israel's Minister of Culture, threatened to revoke the Israeli citizenships of 'NAZA' co-directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, calling the documentary 'shocking' and accusing them of 'betraying the state'
- Zohar wrote that the filmmakers' 'self-loathing' and willingness to 'harm their homeland just to get applause from antisemites around the world' was 'inconceivable,' and pledged to act immediately to revoke their citizenship
- 'NAZA' documents 'in detail the systems behind Israel's calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,' according to its official logline
- The film earned a 24.5-minute standing ovation at its Venice Film Festival premiere — the longest in the festival's history — and Abraham and Szor were awarded the special jury prize
- Yuval Abraham, accepting the award, said it was 'not very easy to stand here, thinking of all the Israeli politicians and journalists who are now attacking this film and denying it without even seeing it'
- Abraham specifically named the Italian and German governments for 'blocking pressure on Israel that can end this,' and said the United States is 'funding much of the killing'
Why it matters: A sitting minister publicly threatening citizenship revocation against a film that just earned a record 24.5-minute Venice standing ovation tests the line between dissent and disloyalty in Israel. Abraham's acceptance speech directly named Italy, Germany, and the United States as enablers of the killing, giving the backlash an immediate diplomatic dimension beyond cultural politics.
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