By Gary Berg-Cross
The 2013 Oscars have their big light drama with
serious movie contenders like ‘Lincoln’ one at least based on a serious book (‘Les
Miserables’). Less watched, discussed or
popularized are nominees in the documentary category. They lack glitz and
glamour of actors on the A-list or celebrities directors (like Michael Moore).
What they have are non-celebrity protagonists living our real dramas narratives.
One that has
attacked some attention is called “The
Gatekeepers” and is about Shin Bet - the shadowy internal security intelligence,
and counter-terror operations brother agency to the Mossad. Director Dror Moreh somehow
convinced 6 former living heads of the agency to conduct on-the record and pretty frank interviews along with raw footage
and reenactments of dramatic historical events that are sewn together into a documentary
with some power. As Newsweek noted:
To
tamp down Palestinian rebellions and foil attacks on Israelis, Shin Bet
operatives have regularly engaged in some unsavory measures—rough
interrogations and targeted killings, to name two—all in the service of
maintaining Israel’s grip over territories it captured in the 1967 war.
And this is an
important part of what we heard from 6, powerful men breaking
their silence as Richard Cohen noted unlike what will ever had with past
CIA directors. These are 6 men spanning 1980-2011 with access to the most
classified information and long experience to understand events historically.
The movies’ arc
included the period of Palestinian terrorism and
insurrections, the rise of the Israeli settler movement, the assassination of a
prime minister, brutalities (“I think he took a rock and smashed their heads in.” ) and cover-ups. The result is what some uncomfortably
call an admirable documentary that raises eyebrows if not angst as it argues
for Israeli compromise as it documents errors and perhaps bad political faith. As the film voices
make clear intelligence gathering has all shades of gray, wrapped in subtle
situations that require nuanced understanding. Yuval Diskin, who
led Shin Bet from 2005 until 2011 as well as his former colleagues tell
how their nuanced advice have been largely and repeatingly dismissed by most
Israeli prime ministers. As a group they
accuse the PMs of ignoring the Palestinian territories and the peace process in
favor of kicking an increasingly explosive can down the road. To paraphrase Ariel Sharon quip, “ I love the
peace process so much it hope it never ends.”
WapPo’s
Ann Hornaday 4 star review “An unsettling true-life thriller” (“first
must-see movie of the year is a riveting espionage thriller that just happens
to be true.” ) suggested the most disheartening messages of “The Gatekeepers”
is how many times Israeli leaders squandered opportunities to end the
occupation of the West Bank or allowed illegal settlements despite a virtually
guaranteed violent response. “What’s the difference between Golda Meir and
[Menachem] Begin?” asks Avraham Shalom, who directed the agency from 1980 until
1986. “Nothing. He didn’t visit the Arabs. She didn’t, either.”
One broad theory as to why former Shin Beth leaders allowed the interview is that
it involves growing religious influence in Israeli society. According to this
view “the film is somehow the parting shot of an old secular elite in Israel,
which is steadily being supplanted by another group, this one more religious
and less prone to compromise. (The current Shin Bet head is religious.)” from Newsweek’s
review which also included this from the film:
Carmi Gillon, who led the Shin Bet from 1994 to 1996,
describes the Russian Compound in Jerusalem, where Palestinians are frequently
interrogated, as so old and forbidding “that any normative person who walks in
the door would be willing to admit to the murder of Jesus” just to get out of
there.
Yuval Diskin, the most recently serving chief, tells of
the coercive measures required to get Palestinians to snitch on their friends
and even family. “[It] involves taking a person who doesn’t really like you and
causing him to do things that he never thought he’d be willing to do.”
In one of the
more startling moments in The
Gatekeepers, Moreh reads to Diskin the comments of the late Israeli
intellectual Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who wrote in 1968 that ruling over the
Palestinians would effectively turn Israel into a police state, “with all that
this implies for education, freedom of speech and thought, and democracy.”
It’s a long,
secular look at difficult times maybe now sliding along down a road with new
religious fervor added.
There is an interview with Israeli filmmaker Dror Moreh on The Gatekeepers from Democracy
Now.
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