Bill C’s Review – 4 out of 5
The Gatekeepers is a very good but unfortunately depressing/pessimistic documentary that explores Israel’s war on terror through interviews with all surviving ex heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency. The documentary does a great job of using (sometimes graphic) archive footage of some of the agencies successes and failures.
The movie goes through the history of Shin Bet focusing on the period after the 1967 war and issues that resulted with the Palestinian refugees. The film also explores internal political conflicts within Israel that resulted in the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the derailment of the peace process.
The movie leaves a pretty pessimistic view of the future in the region. It’s fascinating to listen to these interviews with Israelis who hunt and often times order killing of others with Israelis discussing the need to not just focus on security but also to resolve some of the valid grievances of the Palestinians, the difficulty to do that in Israel today and how Palestinians are at times more interested in inflicting pain upon Israel than reaching a long term peace that will benefit everyone. This is definitely worth seeing.
