Bethlehem

BETHLEHEM       B+                       

Israel  Germany  Belgium  (99 mi)  2013  d:  Yuval Adler 

You think we need Bedouins from who knows where to tell us what’s good for Palestine?  Your father just learned to wear shoes last week! 

—Abu Mussa (Karem Shakur), head of the Palestinian Authority.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the same New York production company, Adopt Films, which previously released standout independent arthouse films like 2013 Top Ten List #4 Tabu (2012) and 2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #10 Sister (L'enfant d'en haut) , had their hand in distributing both Hany Abu-Assad’s Palestinian film Omar (2013) and also this Israeli film, both dealing with the exact same subject from slightly different perspectives, a stark look at the impact of how the Israeli secret police coerces Palestinian prison inmates into becoming Israeli informers in exchange for their release.  Abu-Assad is a Palestinian born in Israel, making him an Israeli citizen, though he doesn’t consider himself one, as Israel still considers itself a Jewish state.  His previous film PARADISE NOW (2005), a film about childhood friends becoming suicide bombers, was the first Palestinian film to be nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Film category.  At the time, the director was quoted in a Tel Aviv newspaper that had he been raised in the Palestinian territories instead of Nazareth, he likely would have become a suicide bomber himself, "Oscar nominee: People hate Israelis for a reason - Israel Culture, Ynetnews".  Yuval Adler, this film’s director and co-writer, served in the Israeli Military Intelligence where he was assigned to what he described as technical tasks, operating drones and maintaining their engines, while co-writer Ali Waked is a Palestinian journalist, with some of the events he covered finding their way into this story.  In the three years it took them to write this film, they interviewed members of the Israeli secret police Shin Bet while also operatives for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and Hamas, producing a powerful, tightly-wound thriller that looks behind the scenes of these often at-odds organizations and follows the story of a complex developing relationship between an Israeli Secret Service agent and his teenage Palestinian informant.  There’s a meticulous level of detail throughout, especially in the elaborate exposé of military intelligence, both on the Israeli and the Palestinian side, producing a work of intense scrutiny that offers real insight into how the intelligence world operates in the Middle East.  While the film is a balance of Hebrew and Arabic, the end credits also list both, side by side, with a little English thrown in as well.    

While Bethlehem is a Palestinian city located in the West Bank, it’s also one of the largest Christian communities and includes important Jewish shrines, so the town is interestingly patrolled by both Palestinian and Israeli police, though the presence of Israeli police tends to incite instantaneous riots, creating quickly growing mob scenes with groups throwing stones at the occupiers.  This hostile environment is nothing less than a war zone, as it’s a community ravaged by unending cycles of violence, where the fanaticism on both sides only escalates.  This is one of the few films, along with Omar, to show balance while creating an unmistakable picture of what life is like in such war-torn areas, where we see it play out viewed from both sides.  From the director, writers, and actors, almost everyone involved in this production is working in a film for the first time, including a terrific use of non-professionals, where according to the director, a Columbia graduate who has a Ph.D in philosophy, the motivation for the film was watching a video news excerpt from the Palestinian territories of an informant dragged through the streets with a hundred people just standing by as he was shot and executed in cold blood.  This kind of savage violence is at the root of the film, as it continues to play such a prominent role in Arab-Israeli relations, much like the use of drones, becoming the unspoken weapon used in the war on terror.  It is not by accident that the title of the film references the birthplace of Jesus, whose parents supposedly encountered difficulty finding appropriate lodging several thousand years ago, as this is a film that moves between Palestinian and Israeli society, between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, which are geographically quite close, separated by a valley that to this day remains a no man’s land and figures quite prominently in the film’s finale.  The film’s center is a complicated relationship between Razi (Tsahi Halevy, an Israeli singer-songwriter with a history of combat duty in the Israeli army), a veteran Israeli Shin Bet operative fluent in Arabic who is working in an antiterrorism unit, and one of his informants, Sanfur (Shadi Mar’i), a young 17-year-old Palestinian recruited two years earlier with the sole purpose of helping track down his older brother, Ibrahim (Hisham Suliman), considered a major threat to Israeli security, as he’s the leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a man Razi has been targeting for over a year.    

The film opens as Palestinian suicide bombers have struck in the heart of Jerusalem, leaving behind more than 30 Israeli’s killed, while Ibrahim has gone into hiding.  The Shin Bet agents are on high alert, calling in all their contacts, where Sanfur is seen living in the shadow of his infamous brother, still living at home with his aging father who views his older son as a local hero, his “only source of pride,” while Sanfur can only be trusted with sweeping the floors where he occasionally works as a busboy.  Early on we see Sanfur posturing with his friends, recklessly trying to prove his courage and manhood, and in a male-dominated world, this is high priority, as it reflects one’s image and worth to the community.  Yet at the same time, we see the deference shown to this young man by Razi, who is very careful how he treats him, where he’s something of a father figure, offering advice, helping him get out of jams, claiming “I’ve spent more time with him than my own kids.”  According to one of the Israeli secret agents interviewed before the film, “The key to recruiting and running informants is not violence, or intimidation, or money, but the key is to develop an intimate relationship with the informant, on a very human level.  It’s not just the informant who is confused about his identity and loyalties.  The agent, too—and especially the good ones—often experience a blurring of the lines.”  In fact, Razi’s motives are as confused as anyone’s, where the film takes us through a maze of behind-the-scenes turmoil, where Razi wants to protect his operative, showing genuine concern, and even lies to his superiors when pressed on the issue, while there’s backfighting among the Palestinians as well.  While the Palestinian militants all hate Israel, they also dislike one another with equal intensity, something this film is particularly adept at exposing, as the secular Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades are affiliated with Fatah, the largest contingent of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which maintains control of the governing Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank, while they contemptuously refer to the radical Islamic Hamas as “the beards,” believing Hamas is undermining their own authority in order to make the Palestinian Authority look weak and ineffective, as Hamas loathes the corrupt bureaucrats of the Palestinian Authority (seen misdirecting targeted funds and driving gigantic SUV vans) who are attempting to negotiate a ceasefire with Israel to save face with the Western powers, especially the United States. 

As all these forces are swirling around in a state of pandemonium and chaos following the incident, the first half of the film is mostly seen through the eyes of Razi, who has a beautiful wife and family that he rarely sees, as the needs of his job are round the clock, never taking a break, where much of his effort is in providing reassurance to Sanfur, who grows less and less trustful, eventually cutting off ties altogether, where the second half is largely seen through the anguished eyes of Sanfur, who so much wants to prove himself, but the world he lives in is always in a heightened state of paranoia and suspicion.  There’s a brilliant action sequence when Ibrahim is tracked down and chased through a market into someone’s home, cornered into a firefight with an Israeli commando squad, turning into a brutal and bloody siege in the home of an innocent family, where the intense street level fighting is further accentuated by an angry mob that is turning on the presence of Israeli police in their neighborhood, where rocks and bullets have a surprisingly powerful effect, where the sense of havoc and turmoil is everpresent, especially on a top secret assassination mission.  The tempers flare afterwards when both Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades claim the corpse of Ibrahim as one of their own, where even in death the conflict continues, where the political insight astutely shows a fractured West Bank that is continually reactive and on the defensive, never developing any coordinated plan of action.  After the death of his brother, Sanfur only grows more angry and militant, reaching out to the leaders of Al Aqsa, the local militia led by Badawi (Hitham Omari), but they’re curious about his relationship to his brother, where certain details cause them concern, especially when they hear Sanfur helped funnel money to Ibrahim from Hamas, a group they’re fiercely at odds with, and the more they press the matter the harder it is for Sanfur, who is just an adolescent kid, to maintain his own sense of identity.  Tugged and pulled, manipulated and coerced on all sides, yet never able to distance himself from his brother, there is no place where Sanjur is safe, nowhere for him to go, ending up all alone in a no man’s zone, finding himself just as trapped as his fanatically committed brother with no way out.  A film about conflicting loyalties, where Razi is equally divided at placing his hard earned informant at risk, but it especially shows just how elusive the enemy becomes when you also have to contend with an enemy from within, where there is no peace and no safe haven, as you can’t trust anyone, and you’re left with no place called home. 

Omar

 

OMAR            B                                 
Palestine  (96 mi)  2013  ‘Scope  d:  Hany Abu-Assad

Much of the fatalistic implications from this movie has the riveting feel of real life drama, as it depicts the improbable and near impossible mountain for Palestinians to climb to obtain respect and nationhood around the world, as this harrowing story of how deeply implanted the Israeli’s have infiltrated into every fabric of Palestinian life is a bit overwhelming at times.  Part of the film’s power is how accurately it reflects life under occupation, and the futility of negotiating any peace agreement with the Israeli’s, as there’s little likelihood of any progress, as Israel has the Palestinians exactly where they want them, fractured, divided, powerless, and permanently economically disadvantaged, where they literally have to flee the country to find jobs and a new life elsewhere.  If they stay, this film reflects, with stunning accuracy, the grim future that awaits them.  Told with a searing intensity that recalls the near documentary portrait of Jacques Audiard’s brutal prison film 2010 Top Ten Films of the Year: #10 A Prophet (Un Prophète), this film depicts the horrible choices that will doom their futures, as young males can expect to be continually rounded up and arrested by Israeli police raids into the occupied territories where they are tortured into becoming informers for the Israeli secret police, the Shin Bet, whose motto is “Defender that shall not be seen” or “The unseen shield,” where they have little choice, as otherwise they’ll simply rot in prison on the mere suspicion of a crime.  And if they are released, their own people suspect they are traitors, that they sold out someone in order to gain their freedom, as that’s the way the system works, so they’re damned either way.  Making matters worse, they’re also humiliated and brutalized when picked up by the Palestinian police, as both sides continually suspect informers in their midst, so the political reality is a hyped up level of elevated paranoia and suspicion, where the legal system simply doesn’t allow due process, so you’re viewed as guilty unless you can prove otherwise, where in all likelihood freedom means you’ve informed on someone. 

Abu-Assad’s earlier films beginning with RANA’S WEDDING (2002) depict the turmoil and daily humiliations of Palestinian life under Israeli occupation, though FORD TRANSIT (2003) is often hilarious and satirically charming, where young minibus cab drivers, the most popular form of transportation in the occupied territories, are viewed as local heroes in the reckless abandon on display in running a black market business of contraband while avoiding Israeli checkpoints.  The road from childhood friends to eventual suicide bombers in PARADISE NOW (2005) reveals a discomfortingly yet altogether human view of the conflict, something of a morality tale turning decidedly more fatalistic, where one character suggests, “Under the occupation, we're already dead.”  OMAR, which won the Jury Prize (Special Award) in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, is an outgrowth of that philosophy, where young people growing up today are under no illusions, yet they’re driven to be freedom fighters by a shattered and disintegrated culture desperate to survive, refusing to live under the thumb of the Israeli’s even as they’re forced to on a daily basis.  This Kafkaesque existence of life under siege is impossible to comprehend anywhere else in the world except here, where there is little alternative except to fight back.  Adam Bakri as Omar couldn’t be more enthusiastically energetic as he scales a rope attached to the top of the 30-foot Wall of the Israeli West Bank barrier to visit his girlfriend, constantly seen on the run where he dodges in and out of narrow streets eluding police, even performing acrobatic roof jumps, navigating a circuitous path to the home of best friend Tarek (Eyad Hourani), where he sips tea while passing notes back and forth with his attractive sister Nadja (Leem Lubany), the real object of his desire.  Secretly he pursues a romantic life together, while at the same time he and Tarek, along with another childhood friend Amjad (Samer Bisharat), plot radical acts of revenge against the continuing presence of Israeli occupiers, culminating in the sniper killing of a border policeman.  Not long afterwards, Omar is picked up in an Israeli commando-style military raid in the West Bank. 

What starts out so romantic and brightly optimistic turns suddenly dark and graphically ugly when Omar is brutally tortured, along with nearly all of the other Palestinian prisoners, where life on the inside of a prison is admittedly dour and hopeless.  While they’re looking for the triggerman of the shooting, Omar’s hopes rest with a lack of evidence, but those hopes are dashed when a planted fellow inmate records him claiming he would never confess, something that in this depraved part of the world is as good as a conviction, considered guilt by association, as it suggests he has something to confess.  This bizarre legal reasoning leaves him sentenced to 90-years, where lawyers have no influence on the outcome.  In a stunning metaphor for current Palestinian-Israeli relations, Omar’s options are slim to none, as he can die in prison, a noble believer in the cause but an ineffectual and forgotten entity in an endless struggle, or he can be recruited by the Shin Bet to become an informer, ultimately betraying the only cause he’s ever believed in.  The Israeli handler, Agent Rami (Waleed F. Zuaiter), is an equally complex figure, as he’s highly intelligent and continually shows genuine empathy for Omar’s precarious position, where he becomes the only person who knows the truth about Omar, perhaps his only friend, but he’s like a mouse in a trap, as there is no escaping the clutches of the secret police.  Once released, on an assignment to set up his friend Tarek, he immediately comes under suspicion in his own community, as they suddenly have their doubts about one of their own.  Whatever his dreams and ambitions may have been about being a force for Palestinian freedom have suddenly been undermined by a deal with the devil.  While he hopes to sort this out on the other side, picking up where he left off with Nadja, making plans to marry her, but things don’t go as planned, where he winds up right back in prison with an even slimmer opportunity to get out.  What’s interesting is the degree of personal intimacy in the conversations between Omar and Rami, which (much like negotiations) rely upon a trust factor, even as they secretly hate and mistrust one another’s real intentions, yet they are destined to play out this sick game together, as Omar insists he can deliver the goods.  But once back on the street he’s become a walking pariah, where no one wants to be seen with him, where he does fit the description of the quote from PARADISE NOW (2005), even more than before.  Turning into something of a psychological thriller, veering into a political hell where best friends are subject to betrayal, as the personal becomes the political, the Biblical reference to Judas looms perilously close, where it’s impossible to imagine being placed into a similar situation.  When seen in this light, captured as an informer, those everpresent media images of massive Palestinian marches and demonstrations hoisting martyred heroes’ coffins in the air through the streets with flags unfurled heralding statehood and nationalistic unity never seemed so pointless and empty, like it’s all just a faded dream from yesteryear.   

The Gatekeepers (Shomerei Ha'saf)

Ami Ayalon (1996 – 2000), center








Yaakov Peri (1988 – 1995)











Avi Dichter (2000 – 2005)

THE GATEKEEPERS (Shomerei Ha'saf)         B+                  

Israel  France  Germany  Belgium  (95 mi)  2012  d:  Dror Moreh   

Official site                  

When you retire, you become a bit of a leftist.       —Yaakov Peri, former Shin Bet chief

Loosely inspired by the Errol Morris film THE FOG OF WAR (2003), as the film interviews 6 former heads of Israel's Security Agency Shin Bet, responsible for the nation’s internal security including the Israeli-occupied territories, an agency so secretive that until recently the names of the operation chiefs were known only by their initials, men with unique roles in the newly developing history of Israel and men whose opinions matter, though the director, a former Israeli soldier himself, hardly merits comparison with Morris, who is one of the great journalists of our era who also happens to excel in making exceptional documentary films.  While the film should be considered mandatory viewing, as it offers a brilliantly concise overview of events in the Middle East since the 1967 Six-Day War, analyzed and recalled by articulate and powerful men who sat at the head of their nation’s security, one of the overall achievements of the film is simply bringing these former security chiefs together to discuss their role in the war on terrorism, Palestinians and the occupied territories, settlements, the peace accord, and their views of the future.  It’s interesting that the men largely reflect upon their own failures, not the morally questionable and oftentimes abhorrent tactics used, but in the overall outcome, suggesting Israel is no safer now despite all the drastic security measures taken, including targeted assassinations of known terrorists.  The film suggests the event that forever changed Israeli history was the fanatical act of a rabidly right-wing, extremist Israeli law student named Yigal Amir who opposed the Oslo Peace Accords (Oslo Accords) and assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, as that put an end to continuing the peace process and shifted the focus of terrorists abroad to terrorists within.  The agency had to completely reorganize its targets and priorities, eventually catching Jewish right-wing extremists in the act of plotting to blow up the Dome of the Rock, offended that an ancient Arab shrine would overlook sacred places of Jewish worship.  It turns out these religious fanatics were backed by prominent Israelis, men connected to the democratic mainstream of Israeli politics, and despite efforts that may have incited a Holy War, which was actually their most fervent religious intent, believing the ensuing chaotic apocalypse would bring about the return of the Messiah, they were tried and convicted, but quickly released from prison due to their close political connections, returning back to their neighborhoods as anointed heroes.  The quick shift from Intifada Palestinian protests against the Israeli government to large rallies of right-wing Israelis protesting against the same Israeli government advocating peace with the Palestinians was a bit stunning, especially when current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was at that time one of the most defiantly outspoken leaders of the Likud party against peace, parading coffins of the embattled Prime Minister Rabin as part of their protest, literally inciting the violence that lead to Rabin’s assassination.  That is easily the most remarkable insinuation of the movie, but it comes from the filmmaker, not any of the agency heads. 

While each of the men has a unique style and different personality, all profiled on the movie website The Gatekeepers, Avraham Shalom (1980 – 1986) is the oldest, and despite his gentle, grandfatherly look, sitting there in red suspenders, he had no problem whatsoever with Israeli security forces hauling a Palestinian hijacker off a bus and beating him to death under his watch in 1984, suggesting one has to “forget about morality” when dealing with terrorists.  With that sly look in his eye, he insisted no one would have known if there wasn’t a journalist onboard the bus exposing the incident.  One of the more provocative techniques was using grainy security footage, often with a targeted scope, showing how cars driving down the streets could quickly be eliminated by missile fire, causing Yuval Diskin (2005 – 2011) to reflect upon the awesome power to decide who lives and who dies, suggesting there’s something unnatural about holding that amount of power in your hands.  There are, of course, negative repercussions to firing rockets in heavily congested urban areas, as there is collateral damage, including the potential deaths of innocents.  Part of the problem was the choice of weaponry, dropping 1-ton bombs, which was the technique of the times and something of overkill, becoming much more sophisticated and accurate today, though one was reminded of an American missile that killed 70 people at an Afghan wedding.  Though it was never mentioned in the film, this raises the question of the use of drones by the American military, which are the most accurate, yet collateral damage remains if the intelligence isn’t as precise as the missiles.  The question becomes, does the use of the weapon deteriorate the effectiveness of the enemy?  In the case of al Qaeda, this is the only effective means of eliminating their leadership, as capturing them, preparation and cost-wise, not to mention the potential loss of lives involved, is simply out of the question.  Israel faced these exact same security questions about what to do with terrorists long before the Americans came into the picture.  Unlike the rather apathetic American public, which remains isolated, thousands of miles away from where the terrorists actually reside, the Israeli public only became more outraged at becoming such easy targets for retaliation, as they were the first victims of suicide bombers, where there was plenty of accumulated bloodshed on both sides. 

After expressing an interest in hearing from the Shin Bet chiefs, Ami Ayalon (1996 – 2000) was the first one approached, a highly decorated military officer brought in at the worst time, after the agency failed to protect the nation’s Prime Minister.  His no nonsense approach offers a clue into the psychology of these men, as on the job one must be steady and sure-handed, making decisions exuding leadership qualities, as you’re literally setting an example for an entire security force.  But afterwards, when one has had time to reflect, you can pull out quotes from old soldiers like Karl von Clausewitz, a German-Prussian soldier and military theorist who claimed “Victory is the creation of a better political reality.”  His argument is one does not have to kill every last man in order to declare victory, as Israel has won literally every military confrontation and successfully assassinated nearly all those most responsible for acting upon the destruction and annihilation of Israel, yet in the same breath Yuval Diskin declares “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.  We wanted security and got more terrorism.”  For every attack Israel initiated, the Palestinians counterattacked, drawing blood for blood, making sure the seemingly stronger military power paid a huge price for their actions, resulting in an escalating war of revenge that only accumulated more and more casualties on each side.  If anything, other than the mistakes made in allowing Rabin’s assassination, these men aren’t questioning their own actions, but critiquing their government, where Shalom acknowledges that in the accumulating bloodlust, “We have become cruel,” suggesting they continue to brutally treat their neighbors as potentially deadly enemies, as after Rabin, there has been no political will for peace.  Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, prohibited in the original peace provisions, have doubled since Rabin’s death, mostly by zealous right-wing religious groups lead by equally fanatical rabbi’s who are willing to risk their lives promoting Zionism.  This kind of stirred up nationalist religious fervor makes no room for peace, and current Prime Minister Netanyahu’s right-wing majority thrives on this much needed rabid support.  Netanyahu, who refused to see this documentary, has called U.S. backed peace talks a waste of time, offering lip service to a side-by-side two-state solution that includes a Palestinian state, while right-wing members of Netanyahu's governing coalition criticize even the mere suggestion of a Palestinian State, believing all of the land should remain under Israeli sovereignty.  So it comes as a bit of a surprise that those once charged with providing for the nation’s security have all grown to regret the hawkish direction of the country afterwards, where according to Avi Dichter (2000 – 2005), "You can't make peace using military means.  Enough of the occupation.  We cannot win this battle.  We have to try to compromise.  If we try to eat the whole cake and not share it we will lose.” 

According to an interview with the Huffington Post, the director believes American Jews look to Israel as a post-Holocaust “safe haven,” suggesting they are drawing “the wrong conclusion…that they have to support Israel no matter what,” a view the director believes is “damaging the state of Israel.”  According to Moreh, “They don't understand that we are going towards an apartheid country.  By not criticizing it, by accepting everything Israel does politically and especially towards the conflict, they are damaging their own goal, to protect the state of Israel as a safe haven for them.”  Accordingly, the film has not been shown on Israeli television, and the subjects of the film, the various former heads of the Shin Bet security service have not been invited to speak before certain “pro-Israel” groups in America, the kind that equate support with blanket approval of Israeli policies.  Any film that critiques the current policies would not be welcomed in those organizations.  The heads of Shin Bet acknowledge they engaged in brutal methods used to detain, interrogate, and stop terrorists, but virtually the only Israeli Prime Minister in the past 30 years who was open to negotiation with the Palestinians was Yitzhak Rabin, who broke the pattern and attempted to develop a lasting peace with Israel’s neighbors.  According to Avraham Shalom, Israel should remain open to talking to anyone, including Hamas, insisting upon negotiating peace and ending its occupation of the West Bank.  It’s the only option that can alter the endless cycle of the threat of terrorism from abroad and the repression of individual rights at home, as otherwise Israel is heading into a modern era police state.  “It completely reflects my views,” said Yaakov Peri (1988 – 1995).  “We discuss these things among ourselves. We all agree,” adding emphatically that every ex-Mossad chief and most former army chiefs feel the same way.  “The six of us reached our opinions from different personal backgrounds and different political outlooks, but we’ve all reached the same conclusion,” Ami Ayalon said. “Many Israelis and American Jews want to deny it, but this is our professional opinion.  We’re at the edge of an abyss, and if Israeli-Palestinian peace doesn’t progress, it’s the end of Zionism.”