Naza: When a Film is the News

0:00There's never been more coverage of Israel and the Jewish world and there's never been less of it worth trusting. That's why ARK Media exists and our subscribers are what make this possible. Join us at ARKMedia.org. And to our subscribers, thank you. You are listening to an ARK Media Podcast. It's 10 a.m. on Thursday, September 17th, New York City. It's 5 p.m. on Thursday, September 17th in Israel as Israelis begin to wind down their day. The biggest story of this past week, at least in terms of the press coverage it attracted, was not the Houthis attack on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea ports or their attempted attack on the holy city of Mecca.

1:02It also wasn't that Israel and Morocco agreed to open mutual embassies or that three Jewish schoolboys were tragically assaulted on a London bus. Now, it was a film that screened at the Venice Film Festival, which accuses Israel of intentional mass civilian killing in Gaza. The film, titled Naza, received a 25 minute long standing ovation, the longest standing ovation in the history of the Venice Film Festival. But what makes this story particularly bizarre is that while millions of people immediately formed a strong opinion about this film, the number of people who actually watch this film is smaller than the number of people listening to this episode of Call Me Back. And it is certainly smaller than the number of people who've watched the new season of Fowda on Netflix, which, though fictional, does recount the story of Hamas' atrocities on October 7th.

2:03Having not seen this film, I did not feel like I had anything to add to this discourse nor did I think that many of the people who did actually contributed much to it. That's until I listened to Yossi Klein-Halevi in Danielle Hartman's most recent episode on ARK Media's For Heaven's Sake podcast. They too have not seen the film, but while they themselves have been critical of Israel's conduct of the war at certain times, they also point out facts that clearly illustrate the standing ovation both at the event and outside of it has more to do with the people clapping than the accusations to themselves. Because much of the film's testimony is anonymous and impossible to independently verify, meanwhile the role of Hamas and its own brutality against civilians disappears. It is practically absent from the narrative. If there's one conversation you should listen to as it relates to Naza, it is this one. If you decided to drop it in our call me back feed in case you missed it, please give it a close listen. We'll be right back with the special replay of For Heaven's Sake.

3:15I'm Deborah Pardays, the host of ARK News Daily. What's happening in Israel and the Jewish world right now matters. But it could be hard to keep up, let alone make sense of it all. That's why we started ARK News Daily. Every weekday morning, I walk you through the most important news, give you the context you need and let you know what to look out for next. I don't try to convince you of anything and I don't waste your time. On most days, I'll be in your ears for about 10 minutes or less. Then you can move on with your day, hopefully a little bit smarter than before. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or follow the link in the show notes. I hope to see you tomorrow. The first thing we learned about the film was not about the film at all. It was the standing ovation. Nearly 25 minutes of a standing ovation. I can't imagine what it's like to be clapping your hands for 25 minutes without interruption. There's something so profoundly totalitarian about that.

4:23It was a declaration of disgust of Israel. Independent of the movie. And if you don't show your disgust well enough, you sin if you only have 22 minutes of disgust. I embrace all criticism. But with this movie, I found myself like from the beginning just shutting down what you're describing Danielle is a text bookcase of how not to galvanize the society to have a moral introspective conversation. Hi friends, this is Danielle Hartman and Yossi Kleinhalaivi from the Shalom Hartman Institute. And this is our podcast for Heaven's Sake in collaboration with Arc Media. Today is Tuesday, September 15th. And our theme, which echoes the conversation of every single Israeli today. The theme is NASA when a film is the news.

5:27For those of you who don't yet know what NASA is, go on any news site, whether social media news, times of Israel, Jerusalem Post. It's bigger news in Israel and in Europe. It's not huge news in the United States. New York Times has a little article about it. But this is what Israelis are talking about. NASA stands for the Hebrew term Nezek Agavie, which means collateral damage. It also, and again, I'm doing a little commentary right now, the name NASA also echoes Gaza and it echoes Nazi. But assuming that this is well thought through, it's a very powerful, a motive title. It's the news. We're in the midst of Saudi Arabia possibly imploding our election cycle. New Poles have come out, which are presenting a continued shift to a stalemate all there.

6:29But what most Israelis are talking about or at least what has attracted a deep attention of Israelis is this movie and debating it. A movie that none of us have seen. A movie that nobody has seen. A movie that extensively argues that Israel had a systematic policy to stop worrying about collateral damage. Now, just again, on a pure legal sense, civilian deaths are accepted within the context of a just war. As long as the civilian casualties aren't targeted and that they are part of collateral damage, collateral killing. I remember Moshe Halbertal once suggested stop using the word collateral damage. It's collateral killing. Damage is like to a cup, a table. It's like someone is dying here, collateral killing. And as long as it also is proportionate to the military benefit and to the security that you're accruing from this act.

7:32So it's everybody understands that in the context of war, civilian casualties are inevitable, especially in the context of a warrant such as Gaza. But the argument of this movie, which we've all seen one minute little clips here and there, is that Israel extensively systematically embraced disproportionate civilian deaths. And while in the past, this is something that limited our behavior, here, there was almost, we embraced it as part of our policy. And the argument then of the movie is, is that genocide, even though it doesn't even have to make that, is that Israel is trying to wipe out. If you're not fighting Hamas, and it's not really collateral killing, but it's the objective that you have, then you're basically, this is Israel committing genocide under the umbrella of a war. This is the argument, and it interviews 24 anonymous soldiers on a rooftop in Tel Aviv, extensively from the 8200 intelligence brigade, who are describing how Israel functions in the war.

8:44Nobody has watched the movie in Israel yet, but there's a few dimensions to the movie, unlike the Christoph article, where there was arguments, we did this, we did this, look at what we're doing, like there's something is happening here, even without knowing the effect of the movie, the condemnation of it without knowing the details. The title itself, you don't even have to watch the movie, to have an opinion about the movie, and the amount of editorials which have come out from people who haven't watched the movie is very interesting, because we all more or less know where this is going. And so, let's talk about NASA, and let's do it in a number of rounds. The first one, what is your first response? Then let's go with your second response, then what's your third response, and in each one, let's peel it back more, because each level is talking about Israeli society, because NASA, while it's a film that won an award in the Venice Film Festival,

9:45we're talking about it not as a European phenomena, not in the film festival context, but as an Israeli phenomena, as something that's happened to us now, this film, it talks about what happened to Gazzens, but it also is a very powerful window into Israeli society. So, let's tell the story, what was your first response to the movie? The first thing to do, which I didn't see, and the first thing that we learned about the film was not about the film at all, it was the standing ovation, nearly 25 minutes of a standing ovation. After the film was shown at the film festival. I can't imagine what that would feel like, I can't imagine what it's like to be clapping your hands for 25 minutes without interruption. There's something so profoundly totalitarian about that, and you know what, it's great, Israeli social media people have been circulating this wonderful piece from Solzhenitsyn,

10:54from the Gulag Acapelago, where he describes a meeting with Stalin, and everyone is afraid to be the first one to stop applauding because you'll be taken out and shot. And he said, people were being carried out on stretchers. That was the only way you could actually stop applauding. Now, that was not the case here, but what was happening there? What was happening in the mind? I can't think of being in any situation where someone received a five minute standing ovation that I was a part of. Two minutes, three minutes, you're already, you're already, you know, ready to pass out. You know, like what is this going to be over 25 minutes? So, something's happening there, and I was trying to understand what was happening, and I felt, you know, forgive the pun, I felt nauseated. I really, yeah, that's my, that may be my first pun for heaven's sake.

11:58It's a good one though, may I say? It's not bad. You just pulled it out of nowhere, and I, that was pretty clever. At a dessert, and it deserves it. Good. The standing ovation deserves it. And I saw a series of photos that were taken during the 25 minute ordeal where the director of the festival is repeatedly looking at his watch. And then you see him signaling, not yet, not yet, and then he does the signal. So, what was he trying to achieve? The previous record for a standing ovation at the Venice Festival was last year, I think it was 23 minutes. He wanted to break that, because that would then give more gravitas to the film. And so, the whole thing is staged. It's a setup. And I was trying to think to Neil. And really, this is total speculation. And yes, I'm looking at this through my own particular lens.

13:00But what might have been in the minds of these people? What did they think they were celebrating? An act of tremendous courage that hears in Israeli coming from this thoroughly corrupted society, a society that has committed genocide and won't own it to the world. And won't own it to Germans, at least, eventually apologized. We are, we have nothing to apologize for. We are today the embodiment of evil. And here's the good Israeli. You know, there used to be good Germans. Now there's a good Israeli. I felt that they were honoring him the way that one would have honored, for example, the members of the White Rose, which was an underground Christian movement in Nazi Germany. They were all beheaded. These were the heroes that the filmmakers are in the tradition of the White Rose. This for me, I'm watching this and I'm just feeling sick.

14:03It's interesting. So we're doing the first round, very immediate. And it's interesting. Does that speak to you at all? The German, I'll never mind the Germans, but the first thing that I related to was also the standing ovation. And it's interesting, even in your first response, you have an articulate historical correlation. This is like, this is when Yossi is doing just spontaneous. Exactly. No, no, for me, for me, you know, this is your immediate world of association speaking from your kitchen. Yeah. This is your immediate. It comes out as a history lesson. Great. I can't wait to hear the second round of like as we get deeper and deeper because this was already very, very thick. Because I don't have any Nazi Germany associations, but at 25 minute standing ovation. First of all, I'm committed never to go to the festival. It's like, I've had standing ovation a couple of times in my life.

15:05After about 15, 20 seconds, even my mother of blessed memory is embarrassed. It's like, okay, they've said a new standard for standing ovation. Is anything less than 25 minutes? That's the point. Is it what? What are you afraid of? And part of me is it was a declaration in many ways of, I don't know if I want to say a declaration of war, but a declaration of disgust of Israel. That's what it was. Independent of the movie. Like we are standing up now and declaring our disgust. And if you don't show your disgust well enough, it's like you sin if you only have 22 minutes of disgust. There was that dimension. My first response, I will get into the movie in the second response. It was just this theater was a deep expression of the loneliness in the alienation of Israel. So my first response was not even the movie. Now we're going to get to the movie.

16:06You'll see what was your second response as you think about the movie. But before even the movie, this environment and I think about how quickly things have changed. And how almost the obligation to be disgusted by Israel exists in certain sectors in the world. It's not anti-Semitism. It doesn't have that dimension. It has a moral self-righteous. I think it comes from a different place. But that if you're a moral person, you're obligated to be disgusted by Israel. And you have to show that you are as seriously disgusted to the extent that you're going to do a 25 minutes standing wish. And it was lonely. There was a sadness that was associated with that. And a sense of alienation also from the people in the room. Regardless of what you think about the movie and what you think about Israel. Just that degree, you were speaking about a fascist-dominist. It had a fanatic dimension.

17:08To see the hatred, the demonization of Israel at that level of fanaticism. It's one thing to criticize. 25 minutes. That was the first level. That was like my first second. And the sadness. Let's now delve into the movie and let's what was your second? So thinking about the film itself, I felt it was a missed opportunity. A profound missed opportunity for Israeli society. We desperately need a conversation here on what might have gone wrong. And I'm still phrasing it as a question. Because I don't know. And most Israelis don't know. We don't have anywhere near a total picture. What we all or most of us do sense is that the total picture that's being presented in that film is a lie. And so the question that we have to start confronting is, did we abuse the category of, as you call it, collateral killings, which is an inevitable category in any war, even more so in a war under the conditions that the idea of had to fight.

18:25Where we're fighting an enemy that doesn't wear uniforms, that deliberately blends in with civilian society, that takes over civilian infrastructure like hospitals. And generally when Israelis discuss the question of collateral damage, it ends there. But there's a next step. Yes, I think most of us accept the fact that there is no way around some collateral damage and maybe under the conditions that we were fighting a great deal of collateral damage. But does that cover everything? Does it explain all the decisions? When you come to us with a blanket indictment, now again, I haven't seen the film, so I don't know whether he's making an explicit connection with genocide or just implied, but clearly from the reaction that we've seen so far. That's enough. That's what's being conveyed. You've shut down conversation, you've lost us. And that's why you know it's so interesting, because initially I thought, you know, we're having this conversation when no one has even seen the movie yet.

19:37And then I thought, well, we're actually right to be responding viscerally with such contempt and rage, because we understand what the movie is. My second stage, I was aware of something happening to me that I know is profoundly unproductive, because in Hartman, parlance, we have a category called X happened in educational analysis. And one that we're now working extensively together on updating it is, how do you respond when somebody says to you something immoral happened under your watch or by you? We called it X. So the classic X was, was there a knock bar or not? And now we have brand new X's, X's genocide, apartheid, colonialism. There's something immoral that you're doing. And how do you respond? What are you doing? Now, the classic response of advocacy, which we have seen to be educationally unproductive, is what our colleague, you who to curts, are called historical disputation.

20:52Outright denial. It didn't happen. Right. Someone says X happened. You're committing genocide. Our response is genocide didn't happen. And we could respond with the legal definition, you know, like as Tal has lectured to us and we are now experts and Masuasa Giv, genocide means ABC. It's an intent to destroy an all or impart a society or all the above and without the intent category. It's irrelevant. And if all of you read in the Wall Street Journal, just, you know, it'll be in your show notes how they're trying to now change the category of genocide so that you don't need to have intent so that they could then accuse Israel. Well, I'm the international did something very similar with apartheid. They shifted apartheid from being about racial separation to a war between the people. So X happened to one of the responses of those who are very committed is it didn't happen. It didn't happen.

21:53And there's all these explanations of how it didn't happen. There's other ways to defend yourself. There's moral justification. There's it happened, but it wasn't my fault. There's realism. It happened, but it's inevitable. This is war or whatever. This is reality. The real world functions this way. And the last category is accountability. Is it happened? And I have to deal with it, which is what you are saying about what we eventually have to do in the war in Gaza. At least first we need to talk about understand what happened, but did something go wrong and to address and to have room for that conversation. But the first thing as this was presented, I went it didn't happen. Like I watched the minute, the minute video clip showcasing the movie had two features to it. One was this anonymous person who you don't see there for the others. There's no way to validate anything in this documentary, none whatsoever.

22:54You don't see the people. You don't know who they are. There's no way for you to follow up. It's all live interviews. There's no factual documentation, which is its own interesting story. One was a soldier saying, yes, we were given permission to kill a Hamas terrorist. And we asked to what number, even to 500. 500 civilians. So here it is. Collateral killing. 500 to one is kosher. And everyone in this country knew that's a lie. Because first, if that was happened, then the number of casualties, not over a three year or two year and a half year period of war. The numbers would have been astronomical. Like they grew by 10, 20, 100 constant with tens and tens of bombs. We bombed the amount of bombs, the amount of targets that were in the tens of thousands. And if that was a ratio, you're talking hundreds of thousands. And we know, like we remember, we know that the condition of collateral killing was different than the war of Gaza than it was in the past.

24:02We know that and it shifted. And for that, we do need to have an accountability. We have to talk. Was it justified? Was it not justified? Was it necessary to bring back deterrence? Was it necessary for the context of their hiding behind this civilian population? All of the above is a conversation that I wish we would actually have, which is your stage two. But once he said 500 was a vastum to what number were you allowed? 500? Immediately I said, didn't happen. Like the movie became irrelevant to me. I said, where is it? Didn't happen. I don't even have to think about it. And people know me. I know things that have happened. You say you don't know and it's fair enough. I could say I know I'm not saying that, therefore everybody else has to agree with me. I know that things have happened. I think most of the world knows that profound things have happened. But this didn't happen. And so immediately I said, this movie is uninteresting. And then the second stage of this little video clip and look it up on YouTube, look up N-A-Z-A on YouTube and you'll see it.

25:07Is the proof is that there's a soldier saying that for every apartment in Gaza, every single house in apartment, there is a file for if we bomb it, what will be the number or the extent of collateral killing that one? And this was evidence that Israel was embracing it when in fact that's a proof of the opposite. That's right. Because, wow, someone went to the effort to actually count them to see what will be the price. Now if I want to commit genocide, bomb away! Like there's a file that's a crucial point. And you know how much effort it is to actually put together this data and then to basically supplying room for a conversation. So I'm looking at this and I'm saying this is evidence of our moral failure. And I'm saying it's the opposite. So I was in this strange place because I want a conversation about Israel's policy on collateral killing.

26:17I don't believe that Israel committed genocide in the sense of trying to kill masses of people. I do believe that there were leaders in the Israeli government and who are still there today, who want all gossens gone. And if all gossens are gone and they have the intent to do so, that intent constitutes genocide. Genocide is not a function of how many people you kill, but in the actions of the army in pursuing the war, was there an intent to do? I don't believe there was. I don't believe there was. I believe there might have been some governmental, certain ministers, all of the above. That's the point you're making is really important that I just want to linger on it for a moment. Because when you build your argument around an Israeli conversation, that's really a debate about collateral damage. The moment you're in that primer, you're in that conversation, you're not in a genocide conversation. Now you could abuse it. Yes, we can argue about whether we abuse the category of what you and I are calling collateral killings.

27:23That's the crucial conversation we need to have. But when you take that conversation and turn it into its opposite, which is indiscriminate. It's the exact opposite. So I'm watching it and then I found myself in a very psychologically complicated place for me to be in. Because I'm all in, unlike many people, actually even like most people, I embrace all criticism. If someone criticizes me, I don't want to waste it. I don't want to waste it. I don't want to get into who are you, you know, do you have it? It's just like, I don't want to embrace it as right. I just want to embrace it as something that I have to take into account. But with this movie, I found myself like from the beginning, just shutting down and then the gap between me and the 25-minute innovation. And then many people around the world and I'm all in for a moral conversation. It's like, I found myself profoundly frustrated with myself.

28:24But I didn't want to change because this movie was over for me. Like it was a morally insignificant event. Now what you're describing, Danielle, is a textbook case of how not to galvanize the society to have a moral introspective conversation. And you know right, we're speaking in the period between Rosha Shanaanyom Kippur. This is the most intense period of the Jewish year for self-interspection. And for this film to come out, it came out on Rosha Shana. For this film to come out now, at a time when really so many Jews were examining are certainly our individual acts of wrongdoing. And then you get hit in the face with this. And again, I come back to what I said earlier about a missed opportunity and what a squandered moment this is, especially on the calendar, the Hebrew calendar. And there's another element here that's something I want to pick up on what you were saying a moment ago, which is that you're open to criticism no matter what the source.

29:30In this particular case, I think the source matters because, and again, you touched on this earlier, we have no way of verifying any of these accusations, everything's anonymous. And the incidents themselves are vague enough so that we don't know how to verify. In a case like that, you really need to trust the filmmaker. You need to trust the messenger because I don't know who these other witnesses are. And what I know about this filmmaker is that he comes from the anti-Zionist Israeli fringe. And I saw an interview with him recently where he was speaking in Arabic to a Middle Eastern audience. And he was saying, my goal is to help the Palestinians even the power differential with Israel. The way to do that is by getting the world on their side. My goal is to galvanize world opinion. So I see this is a guy who's not coming with clean hands. He has an agenda, agree with the agenda or not.

30:36But how can I trust him when he's produced a film that I have no way of verifying and his motives are clear? I think your argument is very strong. It's interesting, I never make that argument. But I'm not attacking it because you're right. In this case, who are we trusting here? So it's like one thing, you know, if Christophe? I'm trusting the witness. There's nothing I don't know who's there. It's one thing Christophe says something. So then everybody could attack Christophe. Like your first thing is, who's Christophe? You remember we had this, you know, who's Christophe? Who is he? And they're all, don't you know, he writes all these things that are verified and blah, blah, blah. But some of the things he does are serious. Oh, that's not go back to me. No, no, but I'm not, but I'm saying, but like that's an example. But he made specific claims. And so if empirically you can't train a dog to rape a person, that's actually something that's worth. Like there's a claim that I could, so I also, in general, I hate the ad hominem attacks. You know, who are you? How could you do it? Are you against me from the beginning? Could I trust you?

31:41Even though I accept that in this case, it's different because there's no way to validate anything. It's just, you know, how is it that he couldn't find even one former member of the intelligence unit who's ready to go on camera? Okay, first of all, we don't know none of us have seen them, but I'm a stench. There's nobody. It's all anonymous. All of them. All of those are great. But it's like, I'm in a strange place because I don't want to do that. Right. And I don't want to do it about this issue. I don't want to do it about this, especially about this issue because I think Israel used certain self-defense arguments to relax the category beyond where it should have been relaxed. You know, and we have so many examples that we've seen, you know, there's a camera that's filming us, so it's endangering us, so let's fire a tank to take out the camera and 12 journalists or aid workers get killed. You know, like, so like, we know something in the operational ease of pulling a trigger was wrong in Gaza. Doesn't mean it was all wrong. Doesn't mean the war was unjust. It doesn't mean we're committing genocide. Just doesn't matter.

32:51There was stuff. And here, I'm fighting myself in a place that I'm not, not natural. And then when I'm looking at the way I know as our colleague, you know, we were talking about this before in our research seminar, as our colleague Ilan Astainheim said, this is going to be required watching in every campus. And then it's going to be fact. And here I want to add, the other dimension is not only am I frustrated with myself, even though it's interesting that this was like, for me, it was just self-evident. So Neil, there's no greater indictment of this film than the fact that the Neil Hartman is coming out against. I don't, I don't know myself in such high regard that there's no greater. But allow me to fly. Thank you very much. It's much appreciated. But what's even more frustrating for me is to know how futile this is. And this isn't even deeper sadness than the 25 minute ovation because it's going to be shown. And it's going to become like Bible.

33:52And precisely because it can't be refuted. That's what religion is. One of its greatest strengths is that no religion worth its salt offers a claim that it's not a religion worth its salt. It offers a claim that's refutable to survive as a powerful religion. Everything has to be, you know, it's just you can't refute it. It's my belief and you can go. And so here it is, you can't refute it. It's going to be scripture. And here it is. And the messenger is this rarely. That's your thing. I don't care if it's this way. It's just, no, I'm saying that I will add to the credibility. That's interesting. I accept that. But even if it wasn't, it wouldn't matter if this, this became through this big film festival, this 80 minute video unverifiable with flaws about is now going to be sacred doctrine. And I know that sacred doctrine when your primary defense is historical disputation, you're irrelevant. And so there's a sadness of...

34:54The goddess. For what? The goddess. And that was my second round and maybe my third round. Do you have another round of this? It's a big deal because then you wonder. And again, I want to quote my colleague, Yuhuta Kertzer, and you have to know one of the great blessings of our work is we get to sit in a research seminar together every week for a couple of hours with... You know, you and I, in Yuhuta, in Ilana, and in Masuasa Giv and Tomor Percot, a whole group where we learn from each other. And one of the things that Yuhuta mentioned, and maybe that's the reason why I shifted here, is that this is part of the assault. This is part of the multi-front war that we're engaged in. And in a multi-front war, you respond to it very, very differently. Because this wasn't criticism. Maybe this is just part of that war. The film is an active war. So it's an interesting feature. Let's do one last round. Because it has such a deep effect on Israeli society. Do you have another level of response that you wanted to share?

35:58Yeah, there's something that this film points to about how this war has been critiqued. And this film is an extreme example of it, but it's a pattern that you see running through much of the extreme criticism against Israel. And that is erasing Hamas from the equation. This is not a war that Israel fought against a terror regime. It's a war that Israel declared against the civilian population. And you saw this very strongly in the work of Omar Bartov. Omar Bartov is the Israeli-born, and once again, Holocaust historian, who wrote a series of op-eds for the New York Times that were seminal in helping frame the conversation and helping lay the ground to accuse Israel of genocide. And when you see the reason, he says I'm a genocide expert. He's the one who always says, I've researched genocide. I am a war. And therefore, this is actually what he says is, I'm a Holocaust expert.

37:06And I know genocide when I see it. And what's so striking in his work on Gaza is that he doesn't deal with the battlefield conditions. This is not a battlefield. It's a killing zone. And yes, a Holocaust historian would look at killing zones. But how do you look at a war and erase the battleground? And it's not there. And I started reading his book. He does the same thing in the book. Hamas is almost an afterthought. I noticed you said, started reading. It's really hard. It's hard for me to get through this stuff. I need a research assistant to sum it up for me. To give you the cliff notes. It's painful. It's sometimes physically painful to read this stuff. And not for the reasons that they were hoping it would be painful to read. And so here again, where's Hamas? Where are the hundreds of kilometers of tunnels? Where are the thousands of booby-trapped apartments? It's not there.

38:16And so the erasure required to get to these conclusions. The systematic erasure of the other side is I think a crucial part of this. And this film, it seems to me, is really in some ways the peak expression of that. You know, my last and with this will conclude, experience of the movie was the Israeli response to it. First of all, the extensive conversation, the declaration of the minister of culture that we're going to withdraw their citizenship of the directors as if they could do that. But it's just you can't take away people, citizenship. Just doesn't matter. But the unproductive response. Not only that X didn't happen, just as a sadness to its lack of effectiveness, because facts should matter. And to know that we're in a world where facts don't matter is a profoundly frightening place, not just for Israel, just in general.

39:17All world is just a strange place, but it wasn't just that. It was again the Israeli return to anti-Semitism. And that's not to say that there aren't anti-Semitic dimensions to it. You mean as our default response to it? And that doesn't mean, you know, and I think a Jew could be anti-Semitic. You know, they could, as you said, I don't get, it's like there's a definition. There's certain categories, you know, it's to turn a Jew or Israel into the evil de jour. I don't care who does it. Anti-Semitism could exist even if it comes from a Jew. It doesn't make a kosher. You know, and some of the people in Venice at the film festival might have been anti-I don't know idea. I'm not sitting here. I don't know. But the frustrating return. Yeah. It's constantly to ascribing everything to anti-Semitism. And I hope I'm not insulting your upbringing. But like it's just, it is just so ineffective. It's not good for us. This goes to your second point. It just shuts us down. But it just makes us so irrelevant in the world.

40:25It was a very interesting article, a declaration by the foreign minister, I think, of Norway, is it? Where he said, you know, and they're considering now turning assistance to anybody who does any trade with settlements into a criminal act punishable by three years in prison. I don't want to get into the nature of, that's a whole other conversation. We should have at some point to talk about what, you know, millibans, I recommend that everybody read millibans speech. And there's a whole thing for the foreign minister of England. We should put that also in the show notes. These are important things to read until, but he said something. He said, for years, Israel has been able to intimidate us by saying that you are an anti-Semite. When you criticize Israel's violations of international law, and in a profound statement he said, that defensive shield, which has enabled you to intimidate us, that defensive shield is now God.

41:31Now, our challenges, there's actually at a time where anti-Semitism is growing. And at the same time, it's becoming less effective as a tool. And when I look at my country, you know, you know, who does right? This is part of the war, this film. This is an assault, this is an attack. And we don't know, how do we survive in this realm of discourse? And how do we re-acquire friends who aren't going to give a 25 minute standing ovation? But who might have a question? So my last fear was to look at this movie and to ask, this is not an easy time. But what do we need to do? I'm sensing that you want to say something? I do. I actually want to just briefly talk about the filmmaker. I saw an interview with him yesterday on an Israeli TV with a Ravi Drucker, who's one of Israel's preeminent journalists, very thoughtful. It was a real interview and not a frontal attack. It was really trying to understand what the film was about, whether the filmmaker considered all of the different angles. Why did you leave out, for example, comparing how Israel waged this war with other armies in similar situations?

42:53And I have two opposite thoughts about the filmmaker. One is how childish he is. He could not have hoped for a softer interview from an Israeli journalist. He was so thin-skinned, he kept saying to Drucker, well, go make your own film if you think I left this out. That's just a childish answer. But the other response that I had was, this is an Israeli kid. And what touched me, despite myself, I did not want to be moved by him. Drucker asked him, are you worried about coming back to Israel? And he said, of course, I'm worried. Israel is my home. I want to continue living in Israel. And suddenly, it just hit me. This isn't a self-declared enemy of Israel. This is one of our kids. And I think he's really gone off in a deep way. And he's done enormous harm to us. But I suddenly felt protective toward him, because we know what he's coming back into. He is now the most heated person in the state of Israel.

44:03There are people in this country who are literally unhinged by the last three years. And I'm reading responses by former hostages that worry me. People are raging against this kid who has done enormous damage to us. So I'm worried about two things. I'm worried for his physical safety, because this is not the society that we hope for, where even extreme critics, even extreme deviance are exposed to violence. So I'm worried for him, and I'm worried for us. I'm worried what this is bringing out in us. To say, may you live an interesting times, NASA, when a film is the news, and when the film activates everything, different dimensions of each one of us. Stay tuned, my friends. Yossi, it was a pleasure being with you. Great to be with you. I'd like to wish all of our audience again a good year in Gmar Ghatima Tava.

45:06She's not Tava everyone. She's not Tava. Here are some other things that are happening at the Shalom Hartman Institute. In preparation for the high holidays, over 60 rabbis joined director of teaching and learning Sarah Lapitan for a special webinar on the prayer's Jews recite this time of year. They explored how the image of a merciful God can help us to embrace the work of this season, to repent and to work on our relationships. If you're a rabbi, sign up for our email list for details about more learning opportunities. Also happening, the North American Fellows of the Cogod Research Center gathered an early September for our opening seminar of the research year. Throughout the year, building on their individual expertise and their shared commitment to the Jewish people, our scholars developed the ideas, arguments and frameworks needed to face both contemporary challenges and to build a better Jewish and Israeli present and future. Click the link in the show notes to learn more about our fellows and their work. For Heaven's sake is a product of the Shalom Hartman Institute and art media.

46:09It is produced by me, Daniel Goodman, with help from Miriam Jacobs, a Dar Taylor Shector, and Aviva Katmanor, and studio support from GoLive Media. Our episode was edited by Seth Stein, and our music was composed by Yvall Samo. Past episodes can be found at arkmedia.org, where you can explore more of our media's podcasts. You can watch the video versions of our episodes on our YouTube channel. Follow the YouTube link in the show notes. Also, to receive updates on new episodes, please follow the link to arkmedia.org and subscribe to ArkMedia's Weekly Newsletter. For more ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute, visit our website at www.shalomharman.org and visit our website at www.shalomharman.org