We are still dealing with the very real damage, collateral or otherwise, that NAZA has caused Israel and is likely to continue causing. Now, before that damage has even fully registered, claims are beginning to emerge that the film itself may have relied on manipulation.
A video released by the private firm Quentin Investigations features a man with his face concealed who says he was one of the 24 military sources interviewed for the documentary. He claims the filmmakers manipulated him, that references to 400 or 500 people being killed in individual strikes are completely false, and that interviewees were offered 10 shekels for every additional casualty they described. He says the largest death toll he knew of was around 90 in the strike that killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, and claims roughly half of those killed were terrorists. The allegations have not been independently verified.
Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor
(Photo: Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)
Is he telling the truth? Is he lying? We have no idea. And that is precisely the problem.
To borrow from philosopher Karl Popper, a claim that cannot be tested and potentially falsified should not be treated as established truth. Even if this new video turns out to be a parody, a deliberate disinformation operation or simply nonsense, we are still left with anonymous testimony attacking anonymous testimony. One does not become credible simply because it confirms what we already want to believe.
But the larger accusation hanging over NAZA, that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, is different in one important respect. It can be examined against evidence.
In my reading, the casualty patterns reflected even in the Gaza Health Ministry’s own lists cut sharply against the claim of genocidal intent. That interpretation is, of course, fiercely contested, and the International Court of Justice has not issued a final judgment in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. But unlike anonymous testimony, casualty data can at least be examined, challenged and tested. The ICJ case itself remains ongoing.
So what deserves greater evidentiary weight? Data that can be inspected and argued over, or anonymous testimony in a film whose sources the public cannot question?
Then there is the Qatar question.
Could NAZA be another Qatari influence operation? Perhaps. But here, too, evidence matters.
James Wilson, one of NAZA’s producers, and Jonathan Glazer, its executive producer, were also involved in The Voice of Hind Rajab. Wilson produced that film and Glazer served as an executive producer. The Doha Film Institute says The Voice of Hind Rajab received support through its grants program.
That connection is real. It is not proof that Qatar financed NAZA. Whether Qatari money was involved in the new documentary is a separate question that deserves examination.
What is clear is that Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based broadcaster, has promoted NAZA enthusiastically and framed it explicitly through the language of genocide, describing the film as revealing “new layers” of what the network calls Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
But Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, has just passed. Israel also needs a reckoning of its own.
When large sections of the cultural world, international media and social media greet NAZA with applause and glowing reviews, it is largely because many of those audiences already believe Israel committed genocide in Gaza. The film does not necessarily change their minds. It confirms what they already believe.
And most people, not only those hostile to Israel, respond strongly to works that reinforce their existing worldview.
The uncomfortable truth is that this worldview did not emerge only because of hostile propaganda.
We helped create the conditions for it.
We made mistakes. We sinned.
I and many others can point to articles, studies and statistics that, in our view, undermine the accusation of genocide. But numbers and data have to compete with something far more emotionally powerful: Israeli officials repeatedly making statements that Israel’s critics could present as evidence of intent.
That matters legally as well as politically. Specific intent is central to establishing genocide under the Genocide Convention, and South Africa’s original application to the International Court of Justice cited public statements by senior Israeli officials as part of its argument that genocidal intent and incitement existed.
Beyond the court filings, Israel’s political and media discourse supplied an endless stream of additional material that could be clipped, translated and circulated around the world.
Some statements made in the first days after October 7 can perhaps be understood in the context in which they were uttered. Israelis were reeling from the worst massacre in the country’s history, consumed by shock, grief and rage.
But months passed.
It became obvious that such rhetoric was damaging Israel. South Africa had already filed its case. Israelis themselves were warning again and again: Stop. These statements are hurting the country.
Yet they continued.
Whatever the motives of those making them, the effect was the same: domestic political performance repeatedly took precedence over Israel’s international interests.
Many Israelis dismiss world opinion altogether. They ask: What matters more, destroying Hamas without international support, or winning international support without destroying Hamas?
That question reflects a profound misunderstanding of how national power works.
International legitimacy is not a decorative public-relations asset. It is a strategic resource.
Pnina Sharvit Baruch of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies has long argued that international legitimacy is a vital component of national security because it directly affects Israel’s freedom of action.
Israel needs international legitimacy in order to defeat Hamas, not instead of defeating Hamas.
When that legitimacy erodes, the consequences are tangible. Governments face pressure to restrict cooperation with Israel, impose sanctions or limit weapons exports. Britain, for example, continues to suspend licenses for certain military equipment that could be used in Gaza and this month expanded restrictions on exports connected to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
When it comes to Israel’s international standing, the problem is therefore often more about policy than public relations.
The simplistic response that “the whole world is against us” becomes an excuse not to examine Israel’s own conduct. But Israel’s conduct matters. Its leaders’ words matter.
When far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir says Israel should be “taking down 30 to 40 every night” in Gaza, those words do not remain inside Israel.
When far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declares, “Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat, total destruction,” those words travel too. They are translated, replayed and cited by Israel’s opponents.
And when videos of violent Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians circulate from the West Bank, while rights groups accuse authorities of failing to stop them, that too becomes part of the picture the world sees. Settler violence has intensified, and criticism of inadequate enforcement has come not only from Israel’s traditional opponents but from international organizations and allies.
That is not a public-relations problem. It is a policy problem.
What exactly are Israel’s diplomats supposed to explain? That senior ministers do not really mean what they say? That violent extremists do not represent government policy while the government is accused of failing to confront them seriously?
Israel must fight what I believe is the false narrative advanced by NAZA and embraced by radical anti-Zionist circles in Israel and abroad.
But Israel must also fight the destructive forces within its own society that keep handing its enemies the words and images they need.
There is no point burying our heads in the sand.
We tried that already.
It does not work.