Gatekeepers - Anyone seen this movie on Israel?

[Con]

I am going to post the article below since it is on a site that requires registration.  Bottom line looks like these professional spooks think that Israel is on a morally dangerous downward path.  I think the quote comparing Israel as a Nazi occupation force is very shocking, especially from these experts.

If you can access it the link is below
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/2013/02/28/inside-the-minds-israel-gatekeepers/0ZQobUDcS2gzwvI6op17hP/story.html

What does it say about a country when its sanest citizens appear to be the secret police? In Dror Moreh's stunning documentary "The Gatekeepers," a half-dozen grizzled old men talk openly about their experiences running Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service and primary anti-terrorism unit. (Very roughly, the organization is to Mossad what our FBI is to the CIA.) They're a varied bunch, some cagey, others bureaucratic, more than one strikingly forthright.

And while they confess — sometimes grudgingly — to misdeeds and miscalculations, to blood on their hands both guilty and innocent, they mourn Israel's gradual turn away from a two-state solution and toward brute force and oppression. These are aging warriors of realpolitik who've grown weary of carrying secrets. Says one, upending the old cliché about age turning liberals into conservatives, "When you retire [from Shin Bet], you become a bit of a leftist."

"The Gatekeepers," which was nominated for a 2012 feature documentary Oscar ("Searching for Sugar Man," a much more feel-good exercise, won), plays a little like "Zero Dark Thirty" as directed by Errol Morris. It's about spycraft, but it goes to the source. If for no other reason, it deserves to be seen for arranging decades of events in the Middle East into a chronology that, to an outsider, makes dreadful sense.

Taking as his starting point the 1967 Six-Day War that saw Israel decisively fighting back against neighboring Arab states and pushing into the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, director Moreh has his subjects take us through years of brief hopes and lasting debacles: the coming of terrorism and the PLO, the 1982 Lebanon War, the first Intifada (there's astonishing footage from the streets here), the 1993 Oslo Accords brokered by President Clinton, the ensuing rise of a violent Jewish religious right that tried to bomb the Dome of the Rock and that ultimately led to the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. And on and on.

Shin Bet's place in all of this is complex and hardly flattering. Moreh repeatedly presses his subjects on some of the more notorious examples of the agency's zeal: the beating and execution of two unarmed hijackers in the 1984 "Bus 300 Affair"; the 2002 assassination of Hamas leader Salah Shehadeh by dropping a 1-ton bomb on a crowded Gaza City neighborhood (14 others were killed, including eight children). Discussing the former incident, Avraham Shalom (Shin Bet director from 1981 to 1986) stops looking like a cuddly uncle and reveals the cold rationalist within. "You killed a terrorist whose hands were tied," the director asks him — how is that moral? The response: "With terrorists, there are no morals."

Other former leaders of the agency are more thoughtful, openly admitting how their work eroded their souls, both as Jews and as human beings. They all reserve a special contempt for the politicians who, we're told, demand binary solutions to situations of endless gray and who "abandon the wounded in the field" at the first sign of bad press. They rage and agonize over the violent Israeli right, led by extremist rabbis. Carmi Gillon (director from 1994 to 1996) almost weeps as he talks of seeing Rabin's assassination coming and feeling powerless to save his old friend.

And all of them point to moments where Israel could have more vigorously pursued a peaceful solution, a Palestinian state; all of them feel that the current situation in Gaza and the West Bank "is a brutal occupation force, similar to the Germans in WWII" (Shalom), that "we are making the lives of millions unbearable" (Gillon). Some of this is surely 20-20 hindsight. But much of it feels like clarity, coming as it does from men paid to have the country's clearest vision. The Shin Bet directors were good at what they did — killing people, uncovering plots, capturing Israel's enemies without and within — but their pride struggles with a greater sense of futility, even a regret that almost (but not quite) backs into guilt.

The film's message comes late, but it is unforgiving. "The tragedy of Israel's public security debate," says one of the Gatekeepers, "is that we win every battle but lose the war."

[Longdan]

Oh boy.  That will stir a pot or two.

[Gusington]

Extremism in any form is bad.

[GDS_Starfury]

its a country that wants to have the best intentions but is constantly forced into shitty situations.  thats not an excuse, its simple reality.  we dont have, nor need, systems that shoot down mere mortors.  we havnt had strings of busses blowing up nor cafe's exploding.  take a step back and consider what the US has undergone because of 9/11.  now imagine that for a period of 5 years a store or bus blew up in Washington DC?  11th Cav would be patroling the Mexican border and everyone would need complete biometrics just to clock in a McDonalds for their shift.  on top of that we live in countries with hundreds, if not thousands, of miles of territory.  Israel fits withing the Florida geographic footprint (ya I know the link I just made there).  the article speaks of terrorist leaders being killed with civililian casualties...  take a look at our nobel peace winners drone program....  Israel is doing the best it can with the shit end of the stick.

[Con]

While I agree that every nation makes shitty choices in shitty situations the important point I got from this article (still havent seen the movie so I can't comment on the whole) is that Israels own experts believe that they made the wrong shitty choices.

Its not about what America has done and would potentially do but that the use of force and counter terrorism has built a generation of hatred and extremism within your own population making it impossible to break the cycle leaving you with only shittier options.  My take on it is  that sometimes unpleasant decisions need to be made earlier (decades earlier in this case) so that you dont end up having to react more extremely down the road.  Violent answers are put on the table too quickly leaving long term consequences that very few can foresee.  To that effect the drone program will probably come back and bite the US sometime in the future as well.

Con

[Boggit]

I'm not really surprised and am even a little sympathetic. It can't be easy to be a nation under siege for some 65 or so years, with a lot of neighbours wishing your destruction. Israel does get a lot of flak worldwide for its responses to its socio-political situation. Some criticism is quite justified and some less so. There does seem to be a general opinion that Israel should act with a higher regard for human rights than its neighbours. Ironically this is a form of backhanded compliment which suggests Israel is more civilised than its neighbours, and thus the world has a higher expectation of them. If sometimes Israel falls short in following its instinct for survival, then at least we can understand why this occurs, even if the "world" doesn't condone the action.

[Longdan]

I find it hard to be overly critical of Israel because I have met and worked with some Palestinian and Lebanese and Israeli people
over the years.  While the Israelis seem overly harsh and violent from a North American perspective, my experiences
with the people they have for neighbours is surreal.  When it comes to Israel they act like they are certifiably insane, ridiculously
envious of them and then blaming them for every conceivable evil in the world.  It just goes on and on.  I do not know what
evils it forgives but it certainly makes them much more understandable.

[Swatter]

No doubt the movie interviews will be "skillfully" edited and placed next to leading statements.

As far as a "peaceful" solution- you have to have two partners for peace. Despite all of the innocent death as a result of Israeli's various military operations, I still fall on their side. All you have to do is listen to the Arabs speak. Its not a close call IMO. However much I personally feel badly for people who must live in the occupied territories, they still want Israel wiped off the map. Its hard to feel true sympathy for people who say "Life is horrible here in the occupied territories, but if given a chance I would kill as many Israelis as possible." It has been that way since day one.

As has been said about 10 million times: Until all of the Arab groups that have the real power over there agree to the existense of Israel (in the Middle East), there will be no peace. You have too many Arabs who simply take the unrealistic view that they can "wait out" Israel, they will be wiped out sooner or later (if Allah wills it). When you deal with that kind of political thought, it is no surprise you have an unending problem.

The world is no utopian fairy tale and Israel creating a Palestinian state will not magically bring peace. Any Palestinian state will only last as long as the extremists in the region can be restrained. The first blow up bus will be the beginning of the end.

[Longdan]

In a society where fanaticism is admired and emotional restraint is unknown you get an endless supply
of crazy people.  Like mad dog crazy.  It is contagious.  These guys don't shout "Death to Israel!"
like adorable lefties singing "Kumbaya".  They get right into it and the cops sing along.
What do you do about people like this?  Especially if you take pre-emptive murder off the table
then what?  That is what Israel faces and the choice is made.  I feel sorry that some very good
people have to do this.  They show their humanity in a way a chanting mob shows madness.
The fact that some bad people do it too doesn't change this.