.
.
The film "Naza": A Certificate of Innocence for the State of Israel from the Charge of Genocide
I watched the film "Naza" ("NAZA") with complete open-mindedness. I call it a film because describing it as a documentary would require reliable and indisputable sources, not interviews with alleged former Israeli military or intelligence officials, who could be anyone and say anything without any evidence or accountability. This approach makes many of its claims fundamentally unreliable, but it actually proves the opposite of its premise: Israel does not wish to harm civilians and has not lost its ethical principles.
From the perspective of a person who does not know war and terrorism, the film "Naza" is certainly disturbing, because it conveys the idea that Israelis and their army are inhumane, and that after October 7 in particular, they have no intention of distinguishing between civilians and terrorists.
The massacre committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023 is shown in less than five minutes out of its eighty-minute runtime. No attention is given to what this massacre means for Israel, nor to what Hamas did or tried to do to Israelis over decades. The responsibility of Hamas toward the Palestinians themselves—turning them into human shields and potential collateral victims in a war whose declared goal was to destroy the terrorist organization that controlled Gaza—is barely addressed.
The central idea revolves around the shortcomings of the artificial intelligence program used by Israel to identify Hamas members in accounting for collateral losses. But the testimonies constantly contradict each other. At first, a 15% margin of error and collateral losses are mentioned, then the destruction of entire families, residential buildings, and even entire neighborhoods to target a single terrorist. Dozens of accounts, but without documented evidence or sufficient context.
According to the same alleged programmer interviewed, if the number of Hamas members is around 40,000 and the total death toll reaches 60,000, then the number of civilians killed would be around 20,000. A tragic figure, but one that refutes the genocide theory and calls for a serious comparison with other contemporary conflicts. A comparison the film avoids. How many films have we seen about the wars in Sudan, Nigeria, and Ukraine and their heavy losses among civilians and military personnel? All these figures are much higher than those related to Gaza.
Naza also ignores essential elements: Israel's objective of destroying Hamas, the release of hostages held by terrorists for nearly two years, the Israeli army's evacuation warnings, and the hundreds of kilometers of tunnels built under densely populated areas and not made available to civilians during bombing operations.
The result is a narrative that portrays Israelis participating in the war as unscrupulous killers and mass-murder criminals, based on anonymous and unverifiable testimonies. There is no real comparison with other wars, no analysis of the relationship between military objectives and collateral losses, and little interest in the context that led to the conflict. All these elements would show us how Israel waged a war that caused as few innocent victims as possible.
It is terrifying to talk about numbers when it comes to human lives, but if you accuse a state of genocide, you must also ask yourself: is it possible to target tens of thousands of members of a terrorist organization rooted in one of the most densely populated regions in the world without causing innocent victims? Before using the word "genocide," we should first ask ourselves how this war was planned, and indeed, the artificial intelligence program discussed in the film shows its intention not to harm civilians.
Finally, Naza concludes with the unacceptable comparison between Israelis and Nazis that we hear daily, as part of a leftist effort to demonize the State of Israel. But if the goal were truly to exterminate the population of Gaza, why were terrorists specifically targeted? Why were civilians warned and evacuated? Why wasn't everything bombed indiscriminately? And how can the genocide theory be reconciled with the population of Gaza having more than doubled over the past thirty years?
Why do we give extreme attention to Israel's mistakes, whether real or imagined, and largely ignore the crimes of Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah, the Iranian regime, or the victims of other wars? Why do we confuse those who fight to defend themselves with those who seek to destroy Israel? Why do we Westerners do this and not the Arabs?
And most importantly, why don't we ask ourselves who financed and married the Naza movement? As is the case with all the propaganda and pro-Palestinian demonstrations in recent years? Why do we continue to ignore the alliance between Islamists and leftists that threatens the West, exploiting compassion for Gaza as a tool of influence? Naza proves that we are in trouble, and it is time to wake up from this negligence.
.
