"The Gatekeepers" and the banality of Dror Moreh

...His predecessor, Avraham Shalom, gives away the film's implied position: "Because of terrorism, we forget the issue of the Palestinian state." Why did we forget? Maybe terrorism was the goal from the onset, and the Palestinians actually never wanted a state? But Moreh is not showing statements that could put cracks in his narrative.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
17 May '13..

1. I was invited to a discussion of the Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum recently. To prepare, I watched the two films that represented Israel in the American Academy Awards' documentary film category -- Dror Moreh's "The Gatekeepers" and "5 Broken Cameras" by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi. Despite the harsh reviews they received, I recommend seeing them. They represent a perspective that needs to be dealt with.

I'll write about "The Gatekeepers" now and save "5 Broken Cameras" for another time. The sycophantic interviews of Dror Moreh in the American media did not bode well for his ability to decode the riddle of the heads of the Shin Bet. They do not say much that is deep in the film. Perhaps this is because Moreh could not deal with such minds or because he was interested not in psychological or intellectual depth, but rather in the political story in which the heads of the Shin Bet served as statistics to fill in the left wing's version of the failure of the Oslo Accords.

The theme of "shooting and weeping" has been well known since we came back to our country and had to defend it with our lives, together with the necessity of taking the lives of others. Now even the heads of the Shin Bet have doubts. This either-or quality is the bread and butter of drama: morality versus terrorism, combat versus conscience, control versus the desire for liberty. The film opens with former Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin's motto: "There's something unnatural about taking the lives of people in a single second."

His predecessor, Avraham Shalom, gives away the film's implied position: "Because of terrorism, we forget the issue of the Palestinian state." Why did we forget? Maybe terrorism was the goal from the onset, and the Palestinians actually never wanted a state? But Moreh is not showing statements that could put cracks in his narrative.

While the film pretends to present complexity, it never fulfills its promise. It shows the world as black and white, and the historical excerpts have no profound context. The Six-Day War. A Palestinian population. Occupation. That's it. There's no discussion about our historical, religious and cultural context as a nation living in this region. Not a word about our principled claim to sovereignty over it.

Why do we promote global anti-Israeli propaganda designed to defame the nation?

Isi Leibler..
Candidly Speaking from Jerusalem..
07 March '13..




It is a depressing reflection of our times, when many of us heaved a sigh of relief when neither of the two Israeli documentary Oscar nominations received awards.

In the current perverted environment, it has become a hallmark of left liberal political correctness to project Israel as a racist and colonial implant imposed on the Palestinian underdogs, even if that necessitates a distortion of reality.

In Israel, practitioners of the arts, especially film producers, are conscious that creating a work which besmirches their nation enhances their prospects of achieving global recognition. That, in part, explains why so many recent Israeli films with a social or political dimension designed for international consumption, have tended to be masochistically critical and demeaning.

What makes this even more bizarre is that in many cases, rabidly anti-Israeli films are subsidized by the Israeli taxpayer.

This was exemplified by the Israel bashing documentary “Five Broken Cameras” which depicts protests against the construction of the security barrier in Bilin without even a hint as to why a security barrier and checkpoints were required. It demonizes Israel’s administration of the disputed territories and portrays the IDF as cruel heartless tyrants whilst presenting Palestinians as noble underdogs.

It is co-directed by an extremist leftist Israeli who supports global boycott of his country and a hostile Palestinian, who had the chutzpa to demand that the government-subsidized documentary not be designated as an Israeli production.

Most Israelis would consider it the height of insanity for the government to fund and effectively bestow legitimacy to an enterprise engaged in a global campaign to defame, challenge its right to self-defense and delegitimize it.

Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., Hollywood moguls and today’s Israeli filmmakers

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
01 March '13..

It’s not every day that news broadcasts open with a lament for what did not actually happen. But this anomaly is occasionally recurrent in our little insular setting. Periodically at this time of year the top item on our news purveyors’ agenda is likely to be what isn’t new: yet again no Israeli entry was awarded the coveted Oscar.

It’s as if the whole international community was holding its breath for some obscure Israeli documentary or film short to get the ultimate nod. All else in Tinseltown’s annual pageant is marginal.

And so Monday morning’s news announcers mournfully informed us that there would be no Oscar for Israel this year.

Neither Israeli nominee for best documentary – 5 Broken Cameras or The Gatekeepers – won. That, of course, afforded commentators their opportunity to ruminate and spew such time-tried clichés as “what a disappointment,” “it hurts” and “it’s a blow to our national pride.”

It’s here that a sanity check is called for.

Is our national pride boosted by films that malign us? Is this what Israeli national pride has been reduced to – the desire to see our face ignominiously slapped before the entire sneering world? Are we pained because another Israel-bashing project didn’t get the glory that our left wing eagerly sought (so as to rub our collective nose in it)? Seriously?

Some of us backward types actually heaved a huge sigh of relief that both Israeli contenders lost. It was sweet that the Oscar for best documentary went to the British/Swedish Searching for Sugar Man.

For decades no film that tells our story and presents our case had come out of this country. Somewhere along the line, local producers must have figured out that their only way to rake in profits and score points overseas – especially in Europe, which despite all pretenses to the contrary, still hasn’t shaken off its congenital Jew-revulsion – is to portray the Jewish state as villainous.

So after all the accolades expectedly showered in Europe on these latest made-in-Israel defamatory offerings, the only solace left us here is to revel in the fact that the Oscar eluded them.