The Gatekeepers

"These are philosophical questions, not practical ones," Yaakov Peri

If the Arab-Israeli conflict interests you, then take a close look at The Gatekeepers, a first-rate documentary about Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency primarily responsible for Israel's complicated relationship with Palestine, for both good and bad.

Director Dror Moreh has the six former heads of the agency speak as candidly as is possible for men were cautious in the extreme about safety and negotiation, causing death, destruction, and reconstruction to people who just can't seem to settle their differences.

As a one-time head avers in the quote above, for the leaders of the agency, founded in 1949 immediately after Israel declared its independence, the decisions of Shin Bet most often depended on the tactic rather than the strategy. Such a mode led to the Bus 300 affair in 1984 with Israeli operatives beating two Arab bus hijackers to death upon orders from Avaraham Shalom, head of the agency at that time. The decision, according to him, was a matter of not having to deal with the terrorists in arrest. And you thought drones were cold.

Ruthless and efficient as Shin Bet is, it couldn't stop Israeli Prime Minister Yitzah Rabin's assassination in 1995, even when it knew the identity of the assassin beforehand. Yet the documentary's thrust, ruled as it is by seasoned intelligence officers who lack self-recrimination, is that the agency did what it had to do and was on the whole successful protecting Israel.

As the film moves toward its end and the elderly leaders ruminate, one states he has moved toward the left in his old age, suggesting that decisions to accept collateral damage to civilians were necessary but regrettable. As I watch in fascination, I could only think how nice to be able to live with oneself and shift on the political spectrum with barely a scratch.

The Gatekeepers, deservedly nominated for a 2012 Oscar, does what a good doc should do—lets the subjects talk for themselves and thereby cleanly exalt and exonerate themselves without directorial intrusion (except in the editing room, of course).

Closer to the truth of the occupation's collateral damage, Shalom evaluates himself and his fellow leaders: "We have become cruel to ourselves but mainly to the occupation."

The movie is a powerful illustration of Golda Meir's comment, "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children." I kept wondering if Arab leaders experience any of the same moral struggle when they direct the killing of innocent men, women and children that these Israelis have. These men opened up and showed us their struggle. It would be sad if we only see the moral conflict on one side. Killing is never easy or right. The responsibility to protect is a heavy one.

The documentary is clear and easy to understand. The supporting film clips are well selected and the editing is excellent. Don't expect to leave feeling good, no matter what your political point of view.

Israelis abide to very few myths. In a young country that is a melting pot of people coming from almost one hundred different countries, where a majority of the population is either born some other place or belong to the second generation of children of immigrant parents, what unites even more than the shared traditions (respected in various manners and to very different levels of obedience) or the common history which is for many yet to be learned (if not to be written) are above all the permanent external menaces perceived in many moments, rightly or wrongly, as existential dangers. In such moments the trust of the nation is not that much focused on politicians but on the people who defend the country, some with the arms in hands, other in wars that are more secret than visible. The heads of the military and the heads of the security services – the legendary spy agency Mossad and the internal Security Service 'Shin-Beth' as it is called in this film are living legends for most of the Israelis. Until recently some of them were known only by their initials as long as they lived and were active. Their opinions count, and when they converge, as seems up to a certain extent to be the case in this film, people listen. The first major achievement of director Dror Moreh and the team that made this film is to have brought together six of The Gatekeepers, the former heads of the internal security service of Israel and make them talk about the history of the service, the war on terrorism, the relations with the Palestinian neighbors of Israel, the situation of Israel today, and the perspective ahead. The convergent views of these men should worry all Israelis who have seen or will see the film.

There is a lot of good and interesting information that is presented in this film, but of course, not all history and the whole complexity of the conflict could have been brought on screen in a documentary that lasts about 90 minutes. Lacking facts will certainly expose the film to critics from all directions, but these critics would be to some extent unfair. In fact for the Israeli audiences there is nothing completely new here, investigative reporting in the Israeli press, TV documentary movies, and books written by political experts and historians have exposed sometimes in much more details different aspects of the stories presented in this film. What is new and different is the candid manner the makers of the movie succeed to make the six different personalities who successively lead the service talk about the events that took place in the last 45 years, their meaning, their implications. Attentive spectators who also know the differences between the views and positions of the six leaders will perceive also the differences between their opinions and their approaches into presenting the facts, but overall a fascinating perspective is built by getting together their testimonies and the history of the area in the period between the Six Days War and today, the initial euphoria, the lost opportunities, the achievements and the mistakes in the fight against terror, the moral dilemmas and the price of the occupation, the human risks and morality of lack of morality of some of the methods – all come together in a perspective which is amplified by the coherent message delivered by each one of the speakers. If you search for information in this film you will not get the whole picture, and I am quite sure that the film will be much better understood from this point of view by Israelis than by audiences abroad. If you look for the historic trends and for indications about things to come, it's mandatory viewing, and it does not look like good news, but rather like a very strong warning signal from people who were in the middle of the policy making and security actions of Israel.

I believe that this film should be seen by as many people as possible and debated in Israel. Best would be probably a screening on prime time TV, but I am not optimistic about this happening soon as prime time TV in Israel seems to be almost fully booked by (i)reality shows. At least, by now The Gatekeepers is distributed commercially and the audiences seem to be interested. However, the more echoes may come from abroad, especially as the film is a candidate for the Oscar in the documentary category, certainly if it also wins the award. The editing of the film is smart, the combination between historical footage and computerized effects puts even more life into the illustrations, and the permanent images of the big screens as a symbol of the technology used to permanently supervise the territories is haunting. I have seen however much more sophisticated technical means put at work in documentaries. 'The Gatekeepers' is eventually a talking heads movie and is important because of the stories that the talking heads tell and the message that they deliver.

I was kind of surprised by the candid nature of The Gatekeepers. I was expecting it to be tainted with political correctness or even overt propaganda, given its sensitive subject matter. But instead, all the former heads of Shin Bet seemed genuine to me - admitting to as many embarrassing exploits as heroic ones.

I am sure there will be people on the opposite side of the fence that will still see it as propaganda. And perhaps that is understandable given how much blood has been shed in that region of the world and just how contentious the issues are. But I for one found the perspectives honest, chilling and with a glimmer of hope that things can be better in the future.

Highly recommended.

In this documentary the film maker interviews six former heads of the Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence service. The interviews paint a picture of the security situation Israel is facing and the decisions it has made in its conflict with the Palestinians.

I was surprised to see that these former Shin Bet heads had a much more nuanced view of the conflict than I expected. Of course, they have been defending Israel and they are still Israeli citizens and they still stand behind decisions that they have made and that have cost Palestinian lives. In that sense they are "pro-Israel". On the other hand some of them openly discussed the possibility of a Palestinian state, they spoke of Palestinians in a much more humane way than many Israeli's do and they were openly critical of Israel's security policy in the past decades, both from a human and from a professional, security perspective.

One of the interviewees for example said that one people's terrorist is the other people's freedom fighter, which is not only very true, but it also shows that these people, through their history in Shin Bet have attained a different way of looking at the conflict. I found that a very surprising and interesting aspect of the movie.

I saw the film at the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA). The maker of the movie was present at the screening and he took questions from the audience after the screening. There was one Israeli woman in the audience that condemned the maker of being anti-Israeli and painting a too positive picture of the Palestinians and right after that there was a Dutch man in the audience accusing the maker of painting a too pro-Israeli picture. It just shows the incredible sensitivity around the subject. I myself was wondering "which side is he on" when the movie started. The movie however doesn't really show the views of the film maker, but the views of the former heads of Shin Bet, which is an entirely new perspective, because most movies about this conflict are created from a certain political standpoint.

I think the maker has done a very good job at getting these six important people to participate in his documentary, because the views of these people are important and hard to ignore. It is not a movie that was inspired by right-wing or left-wing sentiments, it was an unbiased movie that shows the views of the six people that were on the forefront of this war for many years. I am very surprised to see what the reactions to this movie will be in Israel. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.