Consistent with tradition, I was late in getting to this documentary as well. But it is now available for rent, convenience removing all excuses.
The Gatekeepers is an Academy Award-nominated documentary from Israel featuring interviews with six former heads of Shin Bet. Shin Bet (also known as Shabak) is Israel's domestic intelligence service, similar to the FBI or the UK's MI-5.
The film provides good insight into the world of Israeli surveillance, security, and assassinations, or "targeted killings." The interviews are detailed, rather open, and are accompanied by photography and video footage that help the viewer get a better picture of the history.
The honesty of the interviews garnered a good deal of attention both in Israel and the United States. Especially at the end of the film, the director sets up a kind of grand finale of candid, critical commentary about Israel, the country's militancy, and the occupation. One interviewee compares Israel's conduct in the Palestinian territories to German occupation forces during World War II (their presence in Western Europe, not the Holocaust).
While watching the film, I kept thinking about my recent viewing of The Man Nobody Knew, a documentary about former CIA director William Colby (see Jun. 24 blog post). The subject matter of the two films is somewhat similar. Countries with foreign policies defined by aggressive use of military power make enemies. One cannot invade, occupy, and brutalize entire populations without arousing profound anger and resentment within those societies. Under such circumstances, violent reprisal is usually not far away, a fact well known among policy architects. It therefore stands to reason that aggressive states must utilize intelligence and security organizations to minimize "blowback." (Non-aggressive states also possess intelligence agencies, but to address normal security concerns, not the additional threats inspired by belligerence; one could guess that Norway's PST or Denmark's PET - the domestic security apparatus in each country - are less busy.) Naturally, the positions in these organizations have to be filled with people cut out for this kind of work. Only a specific personality will ensure efficiency and consistency: team player, nationalistic, unsentimental, businesslike. There is no room for moral qualms - though sometimes they come later.
Each of the six are looking back and asking fundamental questions. The consensus is that the occupation is not helping or improving Israel in any way, and that diplomacy is the only path to a better future. Nothing said is particularly novel or eye-opening, it is who is saying it. Former members of the occupying power's security establishment saying the occupation is a bad thing brings with it a fair amount of heft.
Another interviewee remarks, "when you retire you become a bit of a leftist." He has started to see the whole. At the end of an era, one can perceive it more clearly. "The Owl of Minerva," observed German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, "takes flight only as the dusk begins to fall."
Like many subjects concerning history and politics, what is at first deemed "leftist" commonly moves to the center and gains acceptance. A little over ten years ago, to even use the word occupation placed you at the left end of the spectrum. Now the term is conventional. Honest analysis based on facts and concern for human suffering has staying power; but this usually requires facing uncomfortable realities, hence initially being labeled leftist. Time offers distance, where the stakes are lower, it being too late. On the contrary, rightwing rhetoric provides easy, reassuring answers - "it's not us, it's them" - but must steer clear of facts and history in order to do so, hence its transitory nature.
This documentary serves as a case study for this phenomenon: former stewards of Israeli security, having helped carry out a rightwing agenda, now reexamining the past with a clearer, more humane perspective.
http://www.sonyclassics.com/thegatekeepers
