Dozens of protesters led by far-right provocateur Mordechai David protested Wednesday night outside the Savyon home of Rachel Szor’s parents. Szor and Yuval Abraham directed the controversial anti-IDF film NAZA.
Videos of the protest showed demonstrators holding signs reading, “Betrayal of IDF fallen” and “Denounce the traitors among us.” Protesters were also heard chanting “Death sentence for traitors.”
David threatened to track down the directors, who are currently abroad. “Wherever they go, we’ll chase them, legally… we’ll block them everywhere in the country,” David said in a video he released on Wednesday.
NAZA alleges that mass civilian deaths were routinely built into Israeli targeting decisions in Gaza, something both the government and the IDF reject.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, citing “immense damage” done to IDF soldiers, vowed on Wednesday to pass a law to revoke the citizenship of anyone who defames Israel’s soldiers, in his latest threat against the directors.
'NAZA' film title sourced from Israeli military acronym for expected 'collateral casualties'
The film, which won a major prize at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival on Saturday, takes its title from the acronym of an Israeli military term for expected “collateral casualties” and is built around anonymous interviews with intelligence officers and soldiers.
It has drawn a backlash in Israel, with the military examining potential legal action against those involved in the film.
In a social media post, Netanyahu said that two bills were being prepared.
“The first, to revoke the citizenship of anyone who defames [Israeli] soldiers, and the second to hit them in their pockets and increase the statutory damages for defamation they can be sued for, times 20,” Netanyahu said. “We will hit them both in their pockets and in their citizenship, as their place is not with us.”
Miki Zohar calls for revocation of directors' citizenship over treason
Culture Minister Miki Zohar accused Abraham and Szor of treason this week and called for the revocation of their citizenship.
However, speaking to N12 on Wednesday, President Isaac Herzog, while calling the film “a shame and disgrace,” said that the effort to strip the filmmakers’ citizenship “has no chance, and it is completely irrelevant.”
He blamed the 24 purported anonymous Israeli military intelligence soldiers interviewed in the film for deliberately going public with their allegations instead of working through the established framework.
“As far as I’m concerned, I say to myself: ‘You were soldiers, you were officers, go to your commanders,” he said, referencing the interviewees. “There are forums where you can bring this up; everyone knows these units. Today, there is even a special company in the IDF that holds probes on these [kinds of] complaints. So why not do this instead of tarnishing our good name around the world?”