9/10
Intelligence professionals are understandably media
shy. Israel’s Shin Bet stays out of the
spotlight more than most. Other than the
organization’s man in charge, all other senior leaders are unknown to the
public. Furthermore, they do not give
interviews. The Gatekeepers is
shocking because of who the filmmaker interviews, the six surviving heads of
the Shin Bet.
From the 1967 Six-Day war to today’s intractable dilemmas
not only with the Palestinians, but also with right-wing extremist Israelis,
the Shin Bet chiefs discuss in detail their most significant operations, both
successes and failures. The oldest
chief, Avraham Shalom, reveals he expected a separate Palestinian state in the
West Bank and Gaza to form but that idea vanished when the bombings and hijackings
began.
Shalom, expressing frustration with indecisive political
leadership, a similar theme amongst most of the chiefs, had no roadmap to
follow concerning counter-terrorism.
There was no strategy in place to handle the new phenomenon and Shin Bet
settled into a reactionary and piecemeal tactical response. A detailed focus on the hijacking of bus 300
explains Shalom’s downfall. Two of the
four hijackers survived the ordeal only to be throttled near death in Army custody. Shalom ordered their execution when he guessed
they would die anyway or be nursed back to health for a trial he did not want
to occur. A subordinate finished the men
off with a rock to the head.
The exploration of the Bus 300 aftermath is a showcase in
spectacular visual effects. The camera
lingers on a picture with the bus in the background and then computer-generated
effects take the audience inside an all of a sudden three-dimensional picture. It maneuvers around frozen people, circles
cars, and steps inside the bus to show a dead Palestinian slumped on top of the
steering wheel behind a bullet-hole ridden windshield. These effects are so novel; The
Gatekeepers would be a lock if there were a Best Documentary Visual
Effects award.
Other examined significant events include the First and
Second Intifadas, Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, the evolution of targeted
assassination of Hamas and Hezbollah’s leadership, and the Oslo Peace Accord
process and disappointing downfall. A
surprising conclusion from one chief which appears to be true of them all, they
each slide towards the political left when the leave office recommending peace
talks, settlement dismantlement, and a two state solution.
Regardless of the creative methods they use to assassinate
terrorist leaders, and there are truly inventive ways, the agreed-upon take
away is attacks will occur despite which firebrand mouthpiece you kill. Filmmaker Dror Moreh most likely learned some
lessons watching Errol Morris’s The Fog of War, Robert McNamera’s
surprising accounting and apology for his Vietnam War mistakes. Moreh pulled off a journalistic coup by
interviewing not only one Shin Bet chief, but all six currently alive.
Israeli security services are widely and correctly respected
for the amount of secrecy they are able to maintain. The frequent leaks and internal divisions
that routinely impact U.S. spy agencies do not occur in the Shin Bet or the Mossad. The chiefs’ openness on some of the most
controversial events of the past few decades is nothing short of
startling. If you remember the Rabin
murder, the Oslo accords, and are versed in the complex history between the
Israelis and Palestinians, put The Gatekeepers high on your
must-see list.
The Gatekeepers focuses solely on the Israeli perspective. By coincidence, a documentary from the
Palestinian point of view, 5 Broken Cameras, is also nominated
for the Best Documentary Academy Award. 5
Broken Cameras is guerilla filmmaking at the extreme tactical level as
opposed to The Gatekeepers, which approaches the issues from the pinnacle
of power. Taken together, they provide
fresh outlooks and waypoint signs on disputes that will not be ironed out any
time in the near future.