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. 

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.”

The Time That Remains

THE TIME THAT REMAINS                         B+                  

aka:  Chronicle of a Present Absentee

Palestine  France  Belgium  Italy  Great Britain  (109 mi)  2009  d:  Elia Suleiman

Except for the Middle East landscape, you’d swear Aki Kaurismäki was smuggled out of Finland to make this film, using that droll deadpan humor, the dark, acid wit, frequent sight gags, cleverly repeating motifs, and characters who rarely if ever speak, but Suleiman only uses Kaurismäki's trademark fades to black when there are significant time shifts all coinciding with a historical event instead of after every shot.  Not as dark or bitingly sarcastic as his last film which uniquely dealt with the comic absurdities of border disputes, as this remains comic but also ads an element of poignancy, taking a much more far reaching and personal scope, reaching into the narrative of his own family history, using his parent’s diaries and letters to comment upon the outrageous conditions resulting from the historical Arab-Israeli conflicts since the Israeli’s started occupying what was his Palestinian homeland in 1948, offering highly personalized portraits of life in Nazareth, now part of Israel, and the Palestinian city of Ramallah on the West Bank.   Maintaining its subversive tone throughout, there’s a stronger sense of urgency in the earlier footage of Elia’s father Fuad, Saleh Bakri, the handsome young Egyptian officer from THE BAND’S VISIT (2007), initially seen following the eyes of a beautiful neighborhood girl as she’s driven away in a car, one of many families that escaped the occupation altogether. 

Fuad is also seen sitting outside a street café with other resistance men carrying machine guns on their laps calmly sipping their coffee in a scene that could just as easily be the Sicilian mafia.  When a heavily armed freedom fighter runs past, the soldier is confused how to help, starting off in one direction and then the next, learning the armed conflicts were resolved almost immediately, so eventually discovering he’s an Iraqi they offer him food and companionship.  As the Israeli army approaches Nazareth, many Palestinians stripped out of their uniforms, dropped their weapons and fled.  The Israeli’s coolly wore the left behind Palestinian uniforms into town waving their flags where many who greeted them warmly were shot dead on the spot, which was followed by the official terms of surrender being offered to the Mayor to sign, where he can remain in power, but all guns are surrendered and the Israeli’s determine any sense of national emergency.  After his arrest, where an unrecognizable man in a hood identifies him to the Israeli military commander as the local metalworker who makes guns, we see him placed with others blindfolded, hands tied behind their back awaiting interrogations, images that strongly resemble Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo, yet as he gets brutally beaten, there’s an eerie peacefulness to the pastoral beauty, especially the view of the ancient, terraced city that lies peacefully nestled in the valley below.       

In 1970, the Palestinians were chased out of Jordan, coinciding with the death of Egyptian President Nasser, which is being viewed on the television by Fuad, now having married the woman (Samar Tanus) seen leaving town earlier, and together they have a son (Elia) who sits quietly nearby, never uttering a word throughout the entire film, but we get the point of what he was subjected to.  In one of the more comical motifs, the little kid is called out of class for a private dressing down by the principal (the movie poster) who can’t figure out where he learned that America was a colonialist and an imperialist power, views directly in conflict with their teachings, where each time Elia is sent home from school carrying a plate of lentils from his Aunt Olga, which he is seen throwing in the garbage upon entering his home.  Aunt Olga makes periodic pronouncements to the family about what relative she’s seen on TV, eventually becoming nearly blind.  An all Palestinian children’s choir receives accolades and awards from the Israeli’s for successfully crossing the cultural barrier and singing patriotic Hebrew songs, all captured in photo shoots using a background of a dozen Israeli flags.  In one of the strangest sequences, the kids are amusingly subjected to an Arabic subtitled movie screening of Kirk Douglas in SPARTACUS (1960), the story of a rebellious Roman slave leading a violent revolt, as if that will raise their captive spirits.  The family also has an elderly neighbor who continually douses himself with kerosene, followed by a spew of choice expletives describing life under the Israeli’s, where Fuad, after putting out his own cigarette, is calmly seen removing the all but worthless matches from his hand and leading him back to his home.  

Ten years later, Elia, something of a free thinker like his father, flees the country, moving in 1980 to Ramallah, where he can be seen sitting in a café outside smoking and sipping coffee with several other elderly gentlemen.  Just out his window images can be seen of Palestinian kids throwing rocks at the Israeli soldiers, where both sides stop their fighting to allow a mother with a baby stroller to safely cross the street before starting up again.  When the Israeli’s berate her to “Go home,” she offers a quick retort, “Why don’t you go home?”  Amazingly at one point an Israeli tank rumbles down the street, stopping at the house across the street where a young man crosses the street to take out the garbage, then crossing back, with the tank’s gun pointing at his head with every step, following his every move until he stops at his door and takes a cell phone call, casually talking to friends about a dance later on that evening, completely oblivious to the threat.  As Elia ages, the Arab resistance feels less of a sense of dire urgency, as if they’re all out of options except to simply ignore the Israeli presence as much as possible.  In something of a daydream sequence, Elia successfully pole vaults over the everpresent wall dividing the two worlds, but he can’t make it disappear.  Choosing a tone of strength from the bonds of family closeness and personal resiliency, Suleiman buries the bitterness of the past.  There is an eerily quiet sequence when Elia returns home to his aging widowed mother, as neither utters a word, yet these are the most poignant scenes in the film, which also do seem to accurately reflect the voice of the Palestinians.  They are a people without a country who have no voice.  At one point fireworks explode in the skies, but neither pays any attention, as there is nothing to celebrate, no more hollow victories, only each other.