He was particularly active among the Bedouin herders and farmers of the South Hebron Hills[2] and against the establishment of Israeli settlements there,[3] in what Uri Avnery described as a protracted effort by settlers to cleanse the area of Arab villagers,[4] in the prevention of which he played a key role.

[1][8][b][c] He was charged with numerous infractions of the law, with convictions ranging from statutory rape, illegal use of a weapon and possession of drugs to assaulting two policemen,[9] In addition, he also served several short stints in prison as a consequence of his activism.

[e] He came to international attention after being convicted in 2007 of participating in a riot and assaulting two police officers in connection with the demolition of Bedouin homes in the West Bank by Israeli border policemen.

The case triggered a political backlash in Israel and there were calls for England and France to stop foreign funding of two Israeli civil rights NGOs, Ta'ayush and B'Tselem, whose members were involved in the incident.

After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, where his duties included laying mines along the Suez Canal, he went abroad, travelling widely in the US and Europe, spending some time in both the UK and Ireland.

[7][16] He developed an interest in human rights, which he said comes from his experience of "belonging to a despised minority",[3] after meeting Irish University lecturer David Norris and forming a relationship with him in Dublin when they met at Christmas in 1975.

"[21] His interest in human rights developed over several years while he shared his home in Jerusalem with a West Bank Palestinian, Fuad Mussa, who feared an honour killing because of his homosexuality.

[25] Nawi had in the meantime joined the Jewish-Arab human rights organization Ta'ayush,[16] where his fluency in both Hebrew and Arabic allowed him to serve as a liaison between local Palestinians in the Hebron area and Israeli activists.

"[44] For the last decade he has set up summer day camps for Bedouin children, brought in projectors to show them films, and taken them on trips to Jericho where, for the first time in their life, they can have an opportunity to swim.

[49] His role has drawn scorn from both the military authorities, who have detained him on numerous occasions, and from local settlers who have previously assaulted him,[50] thrown rocks at his car at night, threatening to kill him when he intervened[5][p] and who have been suspected by the police of intending to assassinate him.

[q] He has complained of multiple forms of harassment, from repeated fines for petty traffic incidents where enforcement is otherwise loose,[51] to having his business audited and receiving a huge tax bill to, he suspected, having his phone monitored and being subject to vicious homophobic taunts.

In an incident at the village of Safa, in the face of tear-gas and live ammunition, Nawi's reaction to Dana's anxiety was to smile, slap him on the back and quip: "quite an adventure you are experiencing!"

The prosecution's case was difficult due to the length of time between the offense and the appeal process, and since the victim, one year under the legal age of consent, was reluctant to testify against Nawi.

[61] Sentencing, in which he was expected to serve up to two years in jail,[62] was originally scheduled for 1 July 2009 but subsequently postponed to 21 September 2009, after the judge had been presented with a petition organized in an international campaign conducted over the internet.

[62] Aside from these academics, the former Deputy Attorney General of Israel, Yehudit Karp, speaking as a character witness and as a former head of a committee that had examined law and order issues in the West Bank, wrote that the situation there was strongly distorted in favour of the settlers, and that this justified the way Nawi, whom she called a modern-day Robin Hood, behaved in conditions she considered "surreal".

[59] In his own defence, given in an article in The Nation at the time, Nawi spoke of his eight years of activism in the area, and asked rhetorically: "was I the one who poisoned and destroyed Palestinian water wells?

"[59] He called relations between the military, civil administration, the judicial system, the police, and the Jewish settlers, whom he regarded as the commanders, an "unholy alliance" where the end of securing full control of the Land of Israel justified any means.

[55][68] On 10 June 2012, Nawi was convicted of "offending public servants" by the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court, with Judge Cjana Lomp presiding, after it was alleged that he had called a deputy battalion commander of the IDF a "war criminal" during a clash at Susya in July 2009, when he and other activists tried to prevent Jewish settlers from establishing an outpost called Givat HaDegel (Flag Hill, alternatively Chisdi Hashem The Grace of God), and thereby depriving Palestinians of their land.

He was acquitted of the charge by Judge Miriam Kaslassy who stated in her ruling that "It's clear as day that we're not talking about random enforcement of a traffic violation", and that the police had made Nawi commit the offence.

In the recording, Nawi relates how Palestinian property dealers mistook him for a Jew looking to purchase land,[75] and says, "Straight away I give their pictures and phone numbers to the Preventive Security Force.

[75] Itzik Goldway, a reserve sergeant in the IDF and decorated veteran of Operation Protective Edge, together with his girlfriend, Julia T.,[12] are right-wing activists from the Ad Kan ("(I've had it) Up to Here") NGO, an organization whose existence was unknown until the Uvda programme was broadcast.

[80]The Palestinian penal code, adopting a principle from the previous Jordanian legal system,[78] imposes a sentence of capital punishment for anyone convicted of the sale of land to Israelis,[76] or, according to other sources, to Jews.

[81] On 11 January 2016, Nawi was arrested at Ben Gurion airport, after purchasing a flight ticket, on the suspicion of being an accessory to manslaughter, of conspiring in attempted murder, of contacting a foreign agent, of transporting an individual in Israel without a permit, and of using drugs.

[83] On 24 January a judge ordered Nawi's release to house arrest, and criticized the prosecution for failing to clarify the allegation that he was involved in the death of a Palestinian selling land.

[85] On 28 January, Judge David Shaul Gabai Richter nullified the cause for the arrest of both Butavia and Nawi, stating there was nothing in the evidence to substantiate the police's central allegation.

[88] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented that the documentary had "unmasked radicals among us, whose hatred for settlements has pushed them over the edge to the point of delivering innocents for torture and execution.

"[75] Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon linked the incident to the BDS movement and said so-called "peace groups" would even kill Palestinians in order to trash and tarnish Israel.

[80] Gideon Levy criticized Uvda's presentation, writing that it systematically ignored the crimes of Israel's occupation of the West Bank, and noted that Nawi was being likened to the perpetrators of the Duma arson attack.

Made over five years on a shoe-string budget, it was judged a somewhat messy docu by Variety film critic Leslie Felperin, who thought its director "too in love with its subject to ask tough questions".

[99]Nawi's instincts, Fox concludes, are those of the humanist, and the director Mossek's gutsiest move was to have made "a film that doesn't aim to inspire us with platitudes but instead tries to shock us with the hard business of building a road to peace".