Palestinian suffering must pass through an Israeli voice to be heard

Hanin Majadli writes in Haaretz on 16 September 2026:

The introduction of Palestinians to anti-Zionist Jews and Israelis, or to those standing alongside the Palestinian struggle, is largely a product of the genocide in Gaza. The exposure that this Israeli minority received in the international media and on social networks has made it present in Palestinian discourse as never before. Palestinians hear and follow leftist, anti-Zionist Israelis or those acting alongside them. For lovers of black-and-white, this is a confusing fact.

How should we relate to these Israelis?

This question comes up repeatedly. Every time an Israeli who opposes the occupation gains international exposure, every time a Jew speaks about Israeli crimes before an audience accustomed to ignoring Palestinian testimonies, and every time an Israeli manages to reach places that Palestinians have trouble accessing.

For example, Yuval Abraham, one of the directors of “NAZA,” the documentary on the Israeli military in Gaza which won a Venice Film Festival prize this week.  The claims are familiar: Abraham, as an Israeli liberal, doesn’t act for the liberation of Palestine, but for repairing Israel. He isn’t doing Palestinians a favor. He’s trying to save the society to which he belongs, not to dismantle the balance of power from which it benefits. His films don’t really threaten Israel; they allow it to present its enlightened face to the world even as it destroys Gaza.

Others ask how one can even applaud the testimonies of colonialists telling about their own crimes. Does the exposure itself make them less partners in crime? Does the fact that a person opposes the occupation cancel his place in the occupying society? Even if he supports Palestinians, he’s still an Israeli. Still benefits from the privileges of the state. Still part of the structure within which the oppression takes place.

The sensitivity provoked by Abraham and his ilk wasn’t born in a vacuum. It touches a familiar Palestinian wound. The world tends to listen to Israelis differently than to Palestinians. It grants credibility, resonance and prestige to things Palestinians have been saying for decades. It seems that in order for Palestinian suffering to be recognized, it must first pass through the throat of an Israeli.

That’s an understandable anger. But this anger sometimes leads to a problematic conclusion: that everything coming from Israelis is inherently tainted.

Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor are dissidents; their films didn’t arouse enthusiasm in Israel, but rather rage and anger and an outburst of violence, and calls for revoking citizenship and even murder. They weren’t accepted as part of the consensus, not even the liberal consensus, but were marked as traitors. Whoever tries to present them as another arm of Israeli hasbara, the term used for government efforts to explain policy, is ignoring reality.

Abraham and his peers have access to documents, testimonies, and sources that we, the Palestinians, don’t have. They can enter places we can’t. They can bring the voice of the pilot, the officer, the intelligence agent, the system operator, the settler. They can expose the mechanism from the inside. This is a privilege, but it has value. We can use their help in order to strengthen the Palestinian argument; there’s no need to panic.

And it is also important to remember the moment when this film was created. Abraham and Szor made the film at a time when Israel is less like the Israel of Rabin and the Zionist peace dove and more like “Don’t Compare” – not only in the eyes of Palestinians, but also in the eyes of Jewish dissidents.

As Palestinians, we don’t have to see Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor as heroes. We don’t have to take off our hats to them. But there’s also no need to crucify the Israelis who choose to do so.

This article is reproduced in its entirety