The Gatekeepers

CinemaSerfSep 2024

3.5

This is quite a fascinating documentary that follows the turbulence of the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians from the Six-Day War through to the present day (2012). It's told using interviews from a succession of leaders of the secretive Shin Bet intelligence organisation peppered with some fairly potent archive across the timeframe. What makes this worth a watch, though, is that it doesn't shy away from offering contrasting - sometimes conflicting - opinions from senior players who were close to even more senior players as their nation struggled to remain independent amidst an Arab community that held wildly differing views on it's right to exist. There are periods of hope that quickly evaporate into more of desperation and violence and some of these contributors seem more prepared to accept that blame for these escalations does not necessarily lie on just one side of this lethal debate. It touches on the attempts at international interventions, the attempts at peace with the PLO and the Oslo Accord whilst demonstrating the resistance from within it's own borders to attempts at peaceful co-existence by the likes of the assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat and US President Bill Clinton. It's also the lack of comment from those third parties that adds a bit of gravitas to this film. We've no chatter from the booths of the CIA to clutter it up with an Americanised view of these problems. This offers an intimate assessment from people who were, quite literally, on the ground making life or death decisions at the time. It questions the potential for peace in the future, of heavily arming and empowering teenage men straight out of school, and of a collective fortress mentality that is forced upon them by as many internal preoccupations as external threats. It doesn't make any effort to represent the opposing perspective, but has an uncharacteristic honesty and candour to it that you might not agree with, but is worth listening to.