A local newspaper, the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, recently ran an article by an “adviser” to the Israeli government in which she trashed the documentary entitled “NAZA.” That is the acronym used by the Israeli military for what our military calls collateral damage. It was such a ridiculous piece I decided to write a letter to the editor, which ran today.
The filmmakers who made the documentary interviewed over 100 people for it and are now being subjected to death threats and Netanyahu wants to strip them of their Israeli citizenship.
If you want to read the original article, here is the link. Pasted in below is the letter to the editor I wrote in response to it, which sums up how absurd the article was.
Looking beyond ‘Fauda’
The Sept. 18 edition of the Chronicle featured an article written by Fiamma Nirenstein, a guest columnist (“Two screens, one choice: The lie of ‘NAZA’ and the truth of ‘Fauda’”). She is an Italian-Israeli who is described as an adviser to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Her article was a harsh critique of a new documentary by two Israeli filmmakers entitled “NAZA.” The title is the word the Israeli Defense Forces use for civilians killed because of military action. The American military refers to such deaths as collateral damage. The film is based on two dozen interviews with Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers whose identities were not revealed in order to avoid retribution.
The two filmmakers have already received deaths threats and Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to strip them of their Israeli citizenship. The film describes how the Israeli military selects targets for attack in Gaza. The decision is made in part based on how many civilians are likely to be killed. A ratio of 20 NAZA to one member of Hamas eliminated was said to be acceptable, though there were claims that in at least one case a ratio of 500 was used.
The international standards governing military conduct during war include proportionality and discrimination. Civilians are not supposed to suffer inordinately by armies retaliating for their losses. And when attacking, armies should attempt to avoid harming civilians instead of targeting them.
Those rules were developed for more conventional conflicts like World War II. Those wars were between opposing armies and did not have terrorists on one side. The best defense the latter have is to be indistinguishable from the noncombatants. The results can be catastrophic for civilians. In Gaza, almost a quarter of a million Palestinians have been killed or wounded, and over 80% of the buildings damaged or destroyed completely.
Some think that is excessive to the point of being war crimes. Not Ms. Nirenstein. She asserts the opposite, writing, “Never in the history of warfare has an army done so much to protect the civilian population.” She cites her interviews with Israeli military officers and several victims of the Oct. 7 terrorism to make her case. She acknowledges there has been suffering in Gaza but asserts it “does not prove an Israeli policy of deliberately killing civilians.”
She urges everyone to reject the NAZA version of events and says that “Fauda,” the Netflix series about a fictional Shin Bet hit squad, is more accurate. In other words, she argues there is more truth in fiction than in facts.
What to believe about Gaza is something anyone who cares about Israel should contemplate instead of simply listening to the cartoon characters of Fauda. When it comes to civilian casualties, there is a difference between a deliberate policy of causing them and deliberate indifference, even though that distinction does not matter to the dead.
The problem in this very polarizing war is that many on both sides are unwilling to look past their grievances and see the humanity of those on the other side. And until they do, there will never be peace in the Middle East.