Video summary
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a sweeping new policy to revoke the citizenship of any individual who defames Israeli soldiers, a move he framed as a necessary defense against those who challenge the morality of his government and military. This draconian measure was introduced shortly after the documentary *NAFO*, produced by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Sor, won a special jury prize at the Venice International Film Festival for exposing alleged deliberate targeting of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli military. In response to what he termed a betrayal of the state, Netanyahu declared that these creators, along with others who criticize the IDF, would face not only loss of citizenship but also severe financial penalties through inflated defamation damages, effectively silencing dissent within his own population.
The controversy extends beyond domestic filmmakers to international organizations and activists, as the Israeli government appears to be preparing counter-sanctions against British aid groups following recent UK sanctions on illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. A leaked document reportedly lists individuals associated with prominent charities such as Oxfam, Save the Children, and Medical Aid for Palestinians as being barred from entering Israel. Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, dismissed these restrictions as proof that the bans are not related to terrorism but rather stem from a focus on damaging the Israeli defense industry, stating that Palestinians have fought colonization for over a century and will return only when their homeland is free.
Critics argue that this aggressive stance represents a resurgence of authoritarianism and fascism, drawing historical parallels to how fascist regimes in 20th-century Europe stripped Jewish citizens of their rights before genocide. The transcript highlights a troubling trend where citizenship stripping has evolved from a tool used against specific violent crimes into a normalized mechanism for enforcing ideological purity and political compliance. By targeting filmmakers who document war crimes and blocking humanitarian organizations, Israel is accused of abandoning its self-proclaimed status as a liberal state in the Middle East, instead adopting practices that mirror the very regimes it was established to escape, thereby creating a settler colony defined by compulsory allegiance to an authoritarian military apparatus.
Read the full video transcript
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu has vowed to revoke the
citizenship of anyone who defames
Israeli soldiers. He said that on
Wednesday. The draconian measure comes
just days after NAFO, a documentary
exposing the Israeli military's
deliberate targeting of Palestinian
civilians and made by Israeli filmmakers
Yuval Abraham and Rachel Sor was awarded
a special jury prize at this year's
Venice International Film Festival.
Netanyahu wasted little time taking
action against those who challenge the
morality of his government and military,
whatever there is of it, or what we
might call report truthfully.
>> I'm going to introduce two laws right
now, government sponsored laws. The
first to revoke the citizenship of
anyone who defames IDF soldiers, and the
second to hit them in the pocketbook by
increasing by a factor of 20 the amount
of damages that can be claimed against
them for defamation to hurt them both
financially and through their
citizenship because their place is not
with us. I expect all factions in the
Knesset that say they support the design
this idea to support these two laws.
>> Miki Zohar, Israel's Minister of Culture
and Sports, eagerly backed Netanyahu's
proposal. Zohar said this on X.
The win of the vile film NAFO at the
Venice Film Festival is shocking. The
self-loathing that burns in the creators
who are willing to harm their homeland
just to get applause from anti-Semites
around the world is inconceivable and
constitutes a betrayal of the state. He
also declared that he would act
immediately in rescinding the
citizenship of NAFO's despicable
filmmakers, his his term, saying now is
time to put an end to this disgrace.
These filmmakers, Yuval Abraham and
Rachel Sor, were also members of the
Palestinian-Israeli collective behind No
Other Land, 2025's Oscar-winning
documentary that explored the
destruction of the occupied West Bank,
very very powerful documentary. In NAFO,
Abraham and Sor speak with 24 anonymized
Israeli military and intelligence
insiders who reveal the use of AI
powered systems designed to swiftly
identify targets and initiate remote
bombings despite military personnel
knowing civilians will be killed. The
Israeli military emphatically denies the
allegations made in the film.
But it isn't just its own systems the
Israeli government appears to be seeking
retribution against earlier today. Al
Jazeera reported having seen a leaked
document dated September 8th, the same
day that foreign secretary Ed Miliband
announced sanctions on illegal Israeli
settlements in the occupied West Bank
threatening counter sanctions on British
aid organizations.
In the letter, the Israeli government
lists individuals associated with 11
British organizations recommending they
be barred from entering Israel. They are
Palestine Action, that's not surprising
perhaps, Oxfam, Save the Children,
Medical Aid for Palestinians and the
Palestine Solidarity Campaign are
amongst those organizations named.
Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori,
who is reportedly named as an individual
set to be denied entry to Israel, told
Al Jazeera this. This letter is further
proof that we were not banned because of
anything to do with terrorism. As the
letter admits, our activity was always
focused on damaging the Israeli defense
industry. Palestinians have been
fighting colonization and displacement
for over 100 years and no threats from
the colonizers can deter us. I will
return when my homeland is free.
Dalia,
Israel often holds itself up as, you
know, the only liberal state in in in
the Middle East. Um of course, you know,
here in the UK, in the US, we're seeing
liberalism come to, you know, some some
sort of fraying as a result of our
government's insistence on upholding
this idea of Israel. How much longer can
they do it when the country is now
saying, "Not only are we going to revoke
the citizenship, the nationality of our
own people who are who are critics of
our military, but we're also just going
to block,
you know, any of your any of your um
organization representatives of
organizations like Oxfam, uh Save the
Children, or ever from from from
entering the country because uh you've
done some sanctions on
on on on the occupied not even on
Israel, but on on on settlements in the
occupied territories.
>> Well, unfortunately, I think that
the reason that Israel will be able to
get away with this for now at least is
because it is actually
perhaps at a more intense level, but is
going in a similar direction to a lot of
so-called liberal nation states, which
is using citizenship stripping as a tool
for censorship,
um as a political tool, and even the use
of citizenship stripping at all um is a
deeply authoritarian um premise because
what, you know, Naomi Klein and Astra
Taylor um have been doing this um you
know, they they've got their new book
out, and they had this uh interview with
the New York Times, this kind of
flagship New York Times video interview,
and the interviewer basically like spent
the whole um
the whole interview nitpicking on the
Naomi Klein and Klein and Taylor's use
of the term fascism, you know, is it
useful to call it fascism? Is this
really fascism? Do you just put people
off by by calling this fascism? And I
think we can confidently say that we are
seeing a resurgence of fascism because
we are seeing a resurgence of and a
re-normalization
of citizenship stripping as a tool of
discipline, as an act of political
warfare. And yes, you know, it's
happening in Israel, and the reason it
looks so acute in Israel is because
they're applying it to filmmakers, you
know, they're not even bothering to say
that this is because of terrorism,
they're just literally doing it to
people who have made, you know, a film
an internationally recognized critically
acclaimed um film, but when you look
sort of at the historical arc of this
act of citizenship stripping. You know,
we see these like laws that allow you to
strip citizenship first becoming really
like used very aggressively during
the 20th century fascism. You know,
Italy, Germany, these countries the
first step that they did towards the
expulsion of Jewish people and the
genocide of Jewish people was to strip
their citizenship. And after the war,
there was kind of this moratorium, this
global moratorium on this idea that you
can strip citizenship. And then from the
2000s onwards, you start to see this
like slow trickle back of this idea of,
you know, and it happens through
anti-terror legislation
of this idea of like oh, there are
certain crimes and there are certain
things that someone can do that means
that we can strip their citizenship.
Okay, people can get on board with that
because often it's people who've done
horrible things. But then of course that
opens the floodgates for this to become
a more normalized practice. And then we
start to see, for example, in recent
bills in the British government,
you know, the the the cases in which
citizenship of a person can be stripped
begins to expand. Begins to expand to
people who haven't necessarily committed
any particular acts of violence,
but you know, for these kind of like
more amorphous situations. And then you
see the the result of that in a place
like Israel where literally not towing
the line on the army during a time of
genocide becomes something that you can
have your citizenship stripped from from
you. And so you can trace the resurgence
of fascism through the re-normalization
of stripping a person's citizenship,
especially when it's linked to questions
of ideological purity or like
ideological
compliance. And for me, there is such a
great irony, but I mean, it's not ironic
to me, but I'm sure it will be ironic to
a lot of people that Israel as a state,
you know, the story that we're told is
that Israel is a state that had to be
established in order to offer a safe
homeland for Jewish people because
Jewish people are a people who have
historically experienced genocide and
displacement through the act of
citizenship stripping, you know, having
their citizenship stripped in in fascist
Italy, in fascist Germany. So, they need
to have a nation-state um where, you
know, it because this risk exists in
Europe. Before it's a homeland or a safe
place or any of that, it's a settler
colony. Um and a settler colony is
necessarily authoritarian and
necessarily will end in fascism.
>> Also, this idea of
compulsory allegiance to a military is
just just terrifying. I mean, that just
screams fascism all over it, doesn't it?
Like, you can't cannot be critical of
the military
um
even when they're, you know, killing
innocent people, which is what this this
documentary ha ha has shown.