Sunday, March 10, 2013

Two Views of The Gatekeepers, the Oscar-Nominated Israeli Doc

Maclean's film critic Brian D. Johnson gives it a rave review (emphasis on the "rave"; in bracketing it with the film Stoker, the implication is that Israel is vampiric):
The film tracks the progress of terrorism from the relative sane PLO to the fanatics of Hamas, from rock-throwing mobs to suicide bombers. But some of the most dramatic moments come as Shin Bet confronts the enemy within—the right wing Jewish extremists bent on their own course of terrorism against those seeking peace. As they plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock, it becomes clear that they, even more than Arabs, could ignite a total conflagration in the Middle East. 
The Gatekeepers is reminiscent of post-apartheid documentaries in which former South African secret police look back on their legacy. It also recalls The Fog of War, Errol Morris’s documentary profile of former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara. When the men look back on their role in dispassionate killing, they can’t help but be haunted, no matter how justified they felt at the time. As we watch aerial footage of surgical bomb strikes on terrorist targets, a former Shin Bet director talks about the sad inevitability of collateral damage. But even the most pristine assassinations of those who would murder Israelis do not leave the conscience clean. And amid the current debate about U.S. drone strikes, the issue couldn’t be more timely.
Melanie Phillips dissents from that viewpoint:
The film consists of interviews with six former heads of Israel's domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet. Its dominant message is that Israeli society has been fatally corrupted by two noxious influences - the "settlers" and the Orthodox - and that those in Shin Bet charged with keeping it safe are sickened by what they themselves had to do.
Now, self-criticism and moral questioning are elevated Jewish virtues. But there is a great difference between conscience and demoralisation. These six imply that if only Israel had come out of the West Bank, there would now be peace in the Middle East. 
As one of them says: "This job makes you into a leftist." Given such laughably simplistic views, does it also rot the brain? 
Director Dror Moreh never states that Arab violence against Jews and Israelis pre-dated the "occupation" by decades. Nor does he ask how Israel would cope with the "Hamastan" the West Bank would become after such a withdrawal, just like Gaza.  
Indeed, years back several of these men had similarly urged Israel to withdraw from Gaza - the lethal consequences of which they fail to acknowledge.

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