The Gatekeepers -- An Analysis

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Part I - The Film

There is a new documentary movie about Israel, called The Gatekeepers. It is directed by Dror Moreh, and features interviews with all the former leaders of the Shin Bet, the country's internal security organization. The Shin Bet is assigned the job of preventing Palestinian retaliatory attacks on Israel and, as described by Moreh, the film "is the story of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories as told by the people at the crossroads of some of the most crucial moments in the security history of the country." Along the way it touches on such particular topics as targeted assassinations, the use of torture, and "collateral damage."  

The Gatekeepers has garnered a lot of acclaim. It has played at film festivals in Jerusalem, Amsterdam, New York, Toronto, Venice, and elsewhere. It has received critical acclaim from critics and won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Best Documentary Award. It has been nominated for an Oscar. 

Part II -- The Messages  

In order to promote the The Gatekeepers, Morah has been doing interviews and recently appeared on CNN with Christiane Amanpour. He made a number of points, as did the Shin Bet leaders in the clips featured during the interview. I shall review and critique some of these below.  

-- Moreh says that "if there is someone who understands the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it's these guys" (the Shin Bet leaders). Actually, this is not necessarily true. One might more accurately claim that these men, who led Israel's most secretive government institution, were and are so deeply buried inside their country's security dilemma that they see it in a distorted fashion (with only occasional glimmers of clarity).  For instance:  

-- Avraham Shalom (head of the Shin Bet from 1981-1986), tells us that "Israel lost touch with how to coexist with the Palestinians as far back as the aftermath of the Six Day War in 1967...When the country started doubling down on terrorism." But is this really the case? One might more accurately assert that Israel had no touch to lose. Most of its Jewish population and leadership has never had any interest in coexistence with Palestinians in any equalitarian and humane sense of the term. The interviewed security chiefs focus on the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza because they are the ones who offered the most resistance to conquest. But what of the 20% of the population of Israel who are also Palestinian and who actually lived under martial law until 1966? You may call the discriminatory regime under which these people live "coexistence," but it is the coexistence of superior over the inferior secured largely by intimidation.    

-- Moreh also insists that it is the "Jewish extremists inside Israel" who have been the "major impediment" to resolving issues between Israel and the Palestinians. The film looks at the cabal of religious fanatics, who in 1980, planned to blow up the sacred Muslim shrine of the Dome of the Rock on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, as well as the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin in 1995. Yet, as dangerous as are Israel's right-wing extremists and settler fanatics, focusing exclusively on them obscures the full history of the occupation.    

By the time Menachem Begin and Israel's right-wing fanatics took power in 1977, the process of occupation and ethnic cleansing was well underway. It had been initiated, both against the Arab Israelis from 1948 onward, and against the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza after 1967, by the so-called Israeli Left: the Labor Party and such people as David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Shimon Peres, and Yitzak Rabin himself. Among the Israeli leadership, there are no clean hands.  

-- Finally, Dror Moreh repeatedly pushes another message: "a central theme of the documentary is the idea that Israel has incredible tactics, but it lacks long-term strategy...if [security] operations do not support a move toward a peace settlement, then they are meaningless."    

Again, this erroneous assessment is a function of being so deeply situated inside of a problem that you cannot perceive it clearly. Moreh assumes that achieving peace with the Palestinians is the only "long-term strategy" Israel ought to have and, in its absence, Israel pursues no strategy at all. However, an objective assessment of Israeli history tells us that there has been another strategy in place. The Zionist leaders have in fact always had a long-term strategy to avoid any meaningful peace settlement, so as to allow: 1. occupation of all "Eretz Israel," 2. the ethnic cleansing or cantonization of the native population, and 3. settlement of the cleansed territory with Jews.   

It is because of this same naivete that Moreh confesses himself "shocked" when Shalom compares the occupation of the Palestinian territories to "Germany's occupation of Europe" which, of course, had its own goal of ethnic cleansing. It is to Shalom's credit that he made the statement on camera, and to Morah's credit that he kept the statement in the final version of the film. But then Morah spoils this act of bravery when he tells Amanpour, "Only Jews can say these kind of words. And only they can have the justification to speak as they spoke in the film." Well, I can think of one other group who has every right to make the same comparison Shalom makes -- the Palestinians.  

Part III -- The Retired Official's Confession Syndrome  

For all its shortcomings, the film is a step forward in the on-going effort to deny the idealized Zionist story-line a monopoly in the West. Indeed, that The Gatekeepers was made at all, and was received so positively at major film venues, is a sign that this wholly skewed Israeli story-line is finally breaking down. Certainly, this deconstruction still has a long way to go, but the process is picking up speed.   

On the other hand there is something troubling about the belated nature of the insights given in these interviews.  They are examples of what I like to call the "retired official's confession syndrome." Quite often those who, in retirement, make these sorts of confessions were well aware of the muddled or murderous situation while in office. But, apparently, they lacked the courage to publicize it at the time. It would have meant risking their careers, their popularity, and perhaps relations with their friends and family.  

One is reminded of the fate of Professor Ilan Pappe who did stand up and live his principles, and eventually lost his position at Haifa University and was, in the end, forced into exile. For most, however, including these leaders of the Shin Bet, their understanding was clouded and their actions skewed by a time-honored, but deeply flawed, notion of "duty" to carry on like good soldiers.