Dozens of Israeli-American and Jewish community members gathered outside Lincoln Center in Manhattan on Saturday as “NAZA” had its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival, with mobile LED screens showing footage from the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre.
The rally, organized by the Israeli-American Council (IAC), coincided with the film’s 3:30 p.m. screening and featured footage from “October 7: Bearing Witness to the Massacre.” The organization said participants remained outside despite heavy rain and storm warnings.
“We’re here not because we’re saying, don’t show the film,” IAC National Board co-chair Tal Shuster said. “Everyone has the freedom of speech; that’s the United States. We are saying: it’s not all the facts.”
Shuster urged theaters screening the film to include Oct. 7 survivor testimony, panels and additional context alongside it. The IAC has launched a petition calling on cultural institutions, film festivals and theaters that screen “NAZA” to also do so.
Supernova music festival survivors Rom El-Hai and Shalev Biton addressed the gathering, according to the IAC. Biton appeared alongside Yunis Alkarnawi, a Bedouin Israeli from Rahat who helped him and others survive the Oct. 7 attack.
“NAZA,” directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, is built around interviews with 24 Israeli military and intelligence insiders who spoke anonymously about Israel’s alleged misconduct of the war in Gaza. The IAC and rally participants challenged the film’s presentation, with Jewish artist and advocate Gabe Meister criticizing its reliance on anonymous sources.
The Israeli Consulate in New York separately mounted a campaign around the premiere, according to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, with trucks displaying messages including, “Critical thinking required” and “Movies have editors, history does not.”
