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Israel ‘a classic settler colonial story’ claims NAZA’s British film producer
EXCLUSIVE: James Wilson also says criticism of just released controversial Gaza film by Benjamin Netanyahu's government has helped boost audiences at cinemas
The UK-based producer of a controversial new documentary film which accuses the IDF of calculated mass killings in Gaza, has described Israel and the modern expansion of Tel Aviv as “a classic settler colonial story”.
James Wilson, producer of NAZA, a documentary by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, also criticised what he calls “liberal complicity” over Palestinian deaths.
Speaking at a Q&A session after a UK screening at the weekend, BAFTA winner Wilson claimed the “extreme reaction” from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to the film’s release has actually helped boost its global cinema audiences.
Israeli pair Abraham and Szor won an Oscar for their previous documentary, 2024’s No Other Land which spotlighted Palestinian life in the occupied West Bank.
But after making NAZA, Abraham and Szor were accused of committing “treason against the state” by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and several senior military and far-right political figures.
Reflecting on the film’s portrayal of Tel Aviv’s high-tech urban landscape, Wilson told the audience at Kensal Rise’s Lexi Cinema in London: “We haven’t talked about that sort of story of Tel Aviv, and the story that Israel tells itself of Tel Aviv, which is again about Israel.
“But it’s a classic sort of settler colonial story… you know, ‘villa in the jungle,’ like civilisation arriving—a very, very deft piece of filmmaking.”
Wilson also referenced interviews with Israeli whistleblowers, some of whom insisted they were neither “Arab haters” nor right-wing, and in some cases identified as left-wingers who had served in elite IDF units.
He remarked: “It’s actually, I think, one of the most interesting things about the film for me… it really deepened my experience, and I think you get that from the film.
“The people in the film are, you know, the elite—liberal elite—of Israeli society in Tel Aviv. They’re not Netanyahu voters. They’re not the Ben-Gvirs.
“They’re not right-wing. As one speaker says, ‘I’m left, a leftist or left wing.’
“They consider themselves liberals, and I think the film is really striking—maybe it will go down as one of the great works that problematises liberalism as a place, a discourse, a belief system—and, crucially, liberal complicity.
“There’s that brilliant moment when one interviewee says, ‘You know, the people in my unit aren’t the Arab haters—we don’t dehumanise Arabs, we’re not like that.’
“Yuval, in such a good interview, asks, ‘But actually, your unit killed the most Arabs?’ And he sort of goes, ‘Yeah.’ He says, ‘All I can say is we were just completing the mission.’
“I think there’s a kind of political education in that moment—that juddering realisation: ‘we were just completing the mission.’
“That speaks volumes to a wider, more universal problematisation of compartmentalisation and selective empathy—a challenge to all of us, beyond just Israel and Palestine.”
Wilson previously said the backlash has come “largely from people who haven’t seen the film”. A petition has been signed by over 1,500 Israeli filmmakers supporting Abraham and Szor.
“I don’t want to be cute or frivolous about the idea that this sort of extreme reaction from the Israeli government has fuelled attention on the film—although I think it has,” he said.
“I don’t know if it’s okay to say as a producer—but it seems to have been objectively acclaimed, and it’s performing very well in cinemas around the world,” Wilson added.
“It has certainly exceeded my expectations for the response.”
During the Q&A, the chair, who identified himself as “Jonathan” from the cinema, described scenes of everyday life in Tel Aviv, in which people were shown watching news footage of Netanyahu on their TV’s.
He claimed:” If you’re seeing someone watching Netanyahu talk and they’re listening to it through the window, that is an atrocity, and that is how these atrocities happen. “
Jonathan also introduced the film earlier as an important document of what he said was the “genocide” in Gaza.
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