This 25-minute ovation is disturbingly revealing of where things stand regarding Israel among the oh-so-sophisticated set–as well as their willingness to reveal it. Is there currently any other subject that could spur an international crowd to such unified, genteel, exhilarating hatred?
This column originally published in American Thinker
Last week, in Venice’s Sala Grande, some official had an eye on the clock. Apparently, the Venice Film Festival now reports purported critical acclaim as if it were an Olympic track event. Twenty-five minutes! That was the record-setting standing ovation time for the Special Jury Award going to NAZA, a cinematic hit piece targeting the Israel Defense Forces. That ovation, Venice proudly tells us, is a new festival record; it edges out the twenty-three-minute ovation for last year’s Gaza film, The Voice of Hind Rajab. (Advice to Venice: Dramatized blood libels should be given their own category, as regular films provide no competition for even preposterous anti-IDF mock-umentaries.)
Let’s set aside the film itself for others to dissect. For now, set aside whether it was dishonest, whether its exclusive use of anonymous accusers is fair, whether its incoherent premise — that the IDF’s Gaza military targeting analysis includes weighing likely civilian casualties, which (somehow) implies a genocide — collapses under its own self-contradictions, and whether the word “documentary” is sufficiently elastic as to cover this work. Set aside asking what aspect of the film the ovation acclaimed: cinematography? score? (more plausible: best screenplay or best editing.)
Also, set aside how the film even got into the competition. The lineup was declared final on July 23; NAZA’s entry materialized on August 24. Festival slots are scarce; producers and distributors fight over them until the announcement of the final slate ends the competition. A film that enters a month after the list was locked has not been selected normally. It has been inserted, without even a Clinton-esque explanation that it depends what the meaning of “final” is.
Let’s also set aside the jury makeup. Its seven members included Kaouther Ben Hania, who wrote and directed The Voice of Hind Rajab, the previous ovation record-holder. She is a vocal and unabashed agitator against Israel’s “genocidal” war, the IDF, and the country itself. At least two other jurors signed on to statements along the same lines. Right or wrong, in what forum wouldn’t recusal have been mandated?
Still, the most telling part of this episode is not the film, but the clock. Granted, NAZA hasn’t been released publicly. But from what’s been seen and reported, it seems to be less a film than a jaundiced TV news exposé — one that no legitimate editor would allow on air.
The film itself runs eighty minutes; the ovation ran 25. That’s a full minute of standing ovation for every 190 seconds of film. Either NAZA is the most insanely great film ever, or something less honest is going on.
Whether in a theater or stadium, an audience senses an appropriate ovation length. Two minutes says, “We really appreciate your unusually skillful performance.” Five minutes says, “We are truly moved by how special this moment is.”
Twenty-five minutes? That length is beyond applauding any artistic performance; the real performance is the ovation itself. It is meant to be timed, noticed, hyped, reported, and deployed — a demonstration to the world of united, unfettered enthusiasm for blackening Israel’s standing, no matter how ludicrous the underlying artistic vehicle. It’s Orwell’s “Two Minutes Hate” (indexed for inflation since 1984).
Was it orchestrated? Does it matter? Everyone in that artsy audience understood what was happening, which is why the claps and cheers went on strong long after they could plausibly mean anything about artistic merit of any film. They were clapping to make a point: to one another, to the cameras, to the media, and to us, as together they reveled in their genteel contempt for Israel. Whether or not it was spontaneous, the world represented by that audience was already primed to condemn the Jewish State. They didn’t really need a film; burning an effigy of Prime Minister Netanyahu or an Israeli flag would also have elicited a strong ovation.
So much for any pretense that the Festival honors craftsmanship. Where are the cinephiles and film critics of integrity who should be calling out this corruption of their craft?
This is disturbingly revealing of where things stand regarding Israel among the oh-so-sophisticated set, as well as their willingness to reveal it. Is there currently any other subject that could spur an international crowd to such unified, exhilarating hatred?
Watching the spectacle, I had the feeling I had seen this before, in a far less glamorous setting: of all places, the U.N. Security Council.
The Security Council is a serious place — or at least a place that takes itself so seriously as to be comical. Fifteen dour delegations sit in their horseshoe of self-importance and debate the language of arcane, often pointless resolutions on serious matters of war, peace, famine, and atrocities. And on Israel. The conversations have all the hilarity and exuberance of a securities prospectus. That aesthetic is intentional: Public deference to the Council requires the pretense that it is an institution of sober judgment that takes everything very, very, very seriously. It is not a place of emotional outburst, humor, or expression of enthusiasm. The U.N. Security Council does not applaud.
Except when it does. Over the past dozen years, that chamber has broken into spontaneous applause only a few times, reportedly including at the passage of the JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal) under the Obama administration; at the passage of Resolution 2334 (declaring no legal validity to any Israeli “settlement” in “Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem”) in the final days of Obama’s presidency; and at passage of Resolution 2728 under the Biden administration, a Gaza ceasefire resolution that specifically did not make ceasefire contingent on Hamas returning Israeli hostages. The common theme: All three were strongly opposed by Israel, and all three passed due to U.S. support or abstention instead of a veto. That’s three eruptions of applause from the most self-consciously solemn body on Earth. Applause for any resolution favored by Israel remains elusive.
The Security Council has voted on Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Russia and Ukraine; on chemical weapons and famine relief; and on genocides on three continents. Not once have those votes elicited spontaneous applause. That, it seems, is reserved for resolutions opposed by and injurious to Israel.
Applause sometimes reveals more than any debate. U.N. speeches are drafted, edited, lawyered, and approved by other diplomats. Voting instruction comes from foreign ministries. A vote tells us about a government, not necessarily the person casting it. But applause, whether at Venice or the Security Council, is different; it’s an acknowledgement that one is in the company of the like-minded, and a signal of wanting to be counted among them.
When applause erupts in a forum whose authority depends on dispassionate neutrality, it is because the outcome was desired. The U.N. cheers, or the never-ending NAZA ovation, reflect a result the supposedly impartial panels have been lusting for.
Reflexive, unified applause that goes in just one political direction is not an expression of neutral judgment. It is a bias — and a bias those applauding are no longer bothering to hide.
Eighty minutes of film. Twenty-five minutes of unmasking. What’s under the mask isn’t pretty.
Abe Katsman is an American attorney and political commentator living in Israel. He serves as Counsel to Republicans Overseas Israel.
