For about twenty-five minutes at the Venice Film Festival, audiences stood for NAZA, a documentary made by the Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. The film, built around the anonymous testimony of 24 current or former Israeli military and intelligence personnel, alleges that AI-enabled systems helped generate and prioritise targets in Gaza, and that the human checks meant to restrain them could be alarmingly thin. It has since won Venice’s Special Jury Prize.deadline 1

The Israel Defense Forces rejects that account. It says that its intelligence systems are analytical tools, not machines that determine who is a terrorist; that human personnel independently select and approve targets; and that it does not deliberately target civilians. Those are serious denials, and they deserve to be heard.theguardian 1

But a serious denial creates a serious obligation: to answer the evidence.

Instead, Israel’s Culture Minister Miki Zohar has called the filmmakers’ work “treason” and urged that their citizenship be revoked. Other officials have called the film “blood libel”; government agencies have reportedly developed talking points for diplomats responding to the film abroad.timesofisrael 2

This is where the........

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