...but you cannot kill the whole world

I don’t know how to break this to you, but the world already knows. The reality that has emerged from Gaza — and will continue to emerge for years to come — is bigger than any film and more powerful than any attempt to silence it. It does not begin with this film (NAZA), nor does it end there, nor can it be summed up by any award.

By Sivan Tahel • Translated by Sol Salbe

For three years now, you said there were no innocents in Gaza. That every child was a terrorist who will grow up to be a fully-fledged terrorist. That every infant was a future terrorist. That every mother was the mother of a terrorist. That they deserved it. That the place should be flattened. Wiped out. The people should be starved out; expelled. That there were no uninvolved people there.

When thousands were killed, you said it wasn’t enough. When tens of thousands were killed, you said more should die. When neighbourhoods were being erased, you asked why the whole city hadn’t been. When children were killed, you said they would have grown up to be terrorists anyway and that “we have no empathy” for them.

And now, a film is coming out — one of many yet to come — showing what the machine looked like from the inside: how AI systems have been used to pick out targets on a massive scale, how human beings were turned into numbers, and how the deaths of others were calculated in advance under the neat, convenient label of “collateral damage.” [Nezek Agavi in Hebrew or NAZA for short.]

We have seen the results for three years. Palestinians filmed, documented, and recounted it, uploading it online in real time. We saw the bodies. The children. The families. The erased homes. You simply decided that those living through it and documenting it were not sources worth listening to.

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And now, when Israelis reveal — from within the system — the reality of the war you sought, supported, justified, and constantly demanded more of, you are furious.

What exactly are you angry about? Is it because everything you wanted to happen actually happened?

Or because people are now telling the story of how we made it all happen?

I don’t know how to break this to you, but the world already knows. The reality that has emerged from Gaza — and will continue to emerge for years to come — is bigger than any film and more powerful than any attempt to silence it. It does not begin with this film, nor does it end there, nor can it be summed up by any award.

You can call for the killing of the victims. You can call for the killing of those who tell the victims’ story. You can try to silence anyone who shows you what is being done in your name.

But you cannot kill the whole world — you know that. Even the only democracy in the Middle East cannot do that.

Translated from Hebrew by Sol Salbe

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