How does an individual make sense of what is happening to them and their lives when experiencing a period in history that defies explanation?
Rashid Mashasrawi, a Palestinian film director who was born in Gaza and grew up in the Shati refugee camp, initiated an anthology film project that stands as a testament to the realities experienced on the ground in Gaza after October 7.
Chosen through a committee process formulated to select work that delivered a cohesive message, the twenty-two entries feature stories ranging from documentary to animation. Running times are between three to six minutes.
The contrast between the utter destruction of decimated buildings with the beach and waves of the Mediterranean Sea is palpable. There is a metaphorical analogy between stark constriction and elusive freedom.
In “From Ground Zero,” numerous themes are ubiquitous in depicting daily routines while individualized and translated through each creator’s prism. People wait to use a toilet in a city of tents. They seek bread or canned goods that haven’t expired. Sorrow and suffering persist during the ongoing search for loved ones who are either buried beneath rubble or already deceased. Bombs are ever-present as people rush to find potential safety. The constant noise of overhead drones becomes an unrelenting buzzing in each Gazan’s head. With as many as two hundred dead in an hour, attempting to live a “normal” existence is barely possible. Yet, girls play hopscotch while singing. A mother engages in caregiving routines after tracking down and gathering water for drinking, cooking, and bathing her children. Previous displacement stories from cities like Jaffa and Haifa are shared.
For me, the most unsettling stories capture the faces of innocent children forced to accept the ongoing tragedy as their current fate.
“Soft Skin” by Khamis Masharawi shows youngsters creating an animated film. Masharawi is one of the organizers of the Fekra Foundation in Gaza, which uses film creation as an art therapy. The theme of “Soft Skin” is how mothers write the names of their kids on their body parts—arms and legs—so that in the event of death or dismemberment, their limbs can be identified. The children can’t sleep until they rub away these markings.
“Soft Skin”
Ahmed Al Danaf’s “A School Day” was particularly poignant. A young boy puts his schoolbooks into a bag. He walks through wreckage and debris, ostensibly to attend classes. Rather, his destination is the grave of his teacher, killed on December 1, 2024. There, he takes out a book and begins to read. Later, after returning home, he is shown struggling to obliterate the day’s memories through bedtime
“A School Day”
In “Overload” by Alaa Islam Ayoub, the main character must decide what to take with her on the “trip north’ in November 2023. As she wonders which items to bring, she questions, “What could be heavier than my grief?” She compares herself to Ruqayya in the novel “The Woman from Tantoura,” who is also “trapped” in her own story. Pondering her unfolding circumstances, she questions, “What is heavier than oppression?”
“Taxi Wanissa” by Etimad Washah begins with a shot of a goat-drawn cart that takes people around the Gaza Strip, beginning an initial storyline before the screen goes black. The director appears and explains that as she was filming, she learned about the death of her brother and his children. Washah lost the desire to continue the work. She states, “It shattered me.” Feeling alone and unable to do anything, she describes her intended arc of the main character dying in a bombing and the donkey returning home alone. Her testimony provides the conclusion to her piece.
“Taxi Wanissa”
Hana Elevia presents a story of joy in “No,” underscoring the healing power of music by singing a song dedicated to love and hope, “to pursue your dreams and build Palestine.” Her approach stands in contrast with the portrayals of unrelenting destruction. As Alla Damo explains in “24 Hours,” he was subjected to attacks three times within one day. He comments, “Every stage of my life was demolished in front of my eyes.”
“No”
“Hell’s Heaven” by Karim Satoum offers a solution that would be at home in the Theatre of the Absurd. After figuring out how to requisition a white plastic body bag from an outpost that offers free washing and burial for the dead, Satoum uses it to sleep in at night because it keeps him warm. The reality of death is a constant companion for those in Gaza. Satoum takes a measure of agency over his situation by preparing himself for what may become an inevitability.
Throughout this collage of Palestinian voices and identity, a strong sense of attachment to the land comes through, along with the refusal to relive the Nakba of 1948. Director Aws Al Banna (“Jad and Natalie”) relates, “I feel such oppression, I can’t even cry.” In “Flashback,” a comment that should land with recognition (and hopefully empathy from Jews) is the statement of Islam Al Zeriei: “I always have a bag packed.”
Michael Moore is the film’s Executive Producer, an official Toronto International Film Festival selection, and a 97th AcademyAwards® Shortlist Nominee for International Feature Film: Palestine. On his role in amplifying the project, Moore noted, “It’s an honor to stand in solidarity with them and help share their stories with the world.”
With Trump and Netanyahu meeting in Washington, D.C., now couldn’t be a better time for Americans (and others) to pick up Gideon Levy’s book, The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe. It covers the period of 2014 through June 2024, and presents a clear-eyed vision of what transpired before and after October 7, 2023. For those brave enough to listen to what Levy says, it might help them reframe the Israeli-Palestinian narrative moving forward.
Gideon Levy was one of the first Israeli journalists I began reading with regularity when I subscribed to the English version of Haaretz five years ago. He never failed to report uncomfortable truths and continues to defy Israeli hasbara in his columns, which cover the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank—his beat for thirty-six years. Not one to shy away from asking the hard questions, at the center of his manuscript is the theme, “Can a society exist without a conscience?”
The Killing of Gaza is divided into two sections. The first part is broken down by years, 2014 through 2023. The second begins with October 2023 and delves into each month through June 2024. By the time Levy reaches April, the subheading is, “In Six Months in Gaza, Israel’s Worst-Ever War Achieved Nothing but Death and Destruction.”
The book’s tone is anger and frustration, laced with sarcasm. Levy traces the series of missteps and bad choices that he posits have dogged Israel’s leaders from its earliest days.
Levy begins by grounding his readers into his whereabouts on that fateful October 7. It was a warm Shabbat coinciding with Simchat Torah. He was out for a run in a park near his home in the northern district of Tel Aviv. As he sits down to write his column for the Sunday edition in response to the initial reports of an attack, his first thoughts are about the fall of Berlin. However, after being informed by his editor of the murders and abductions of Israeli citizens, he shifts his premise.
He writes: “Behind all this lies Israeli arrogance; the idea that we can do whatever we like, that we’ll never pay the price and be punished for it. We’ll carry on undisturbed.”
Levy last visited Gaza eighteen years ago, before the government prohibited Israeli journalists from entering. He had been a regular visitor from 1987 through 2006. His goal was to serve as an interlocutor on “life and death under Israeli occupation—where freedom and basic human rights were denied.”
Since June 2007, Israel has imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip (with the collaboration of Egypt), isolating two to three million people. Levy observes that when Hamas gained power, “the closure took on a new form, tighter and crueler.”
Levy takes the reader down the path of actions and attitudes that he sees as laying the groundwork for October 2023. He questions why Israelis believe that the inhabitants of Gaza would accept their living conditions and the blockade indefinitely. When referencing an operation put into play, named Protective Edge, Levy employs his acerbic wit to emphasize that the undertaking gave “no protection and no edge.” Rather, he underscores that in Israel’s continuous forays, “Nobody seems to learn anything, and nothing changes except the weapons.” When Levy outlines the devastation wrought by the military action, he adds as a postscript, “But that, too, prompted nothing more than a big yawn.”
Calling Hamas “a despicable organization,” Levy doesn’t step away from “the crimes committed by the invaders.” Yet, he emphasizes that there is a clear distinction between Hamas and the people of Gaza.” His mission is to underscore the humanity of those Gazans who have repeatedly been “dispossessed and expelled,” living under seventeen years of a blockade and seventy-five years of misery. As the months go by, Levy stresses that “the war has lost all reasonable proportion required for punishment, revenge or future deterrence.” He criticizes the absence of an endgame of strategy for “the day after.”
Levy references the 2012 United Nations report Gaza in 2020: A Livable Place?By January 2020, one to two million people lived where the norms were worse than the study had predicted. Levy writes, “There’s a Chernobyl in Gaza, an hour from Tel Aviv.” He also calls out the global community for their recurring no-teeth commissions of inquiries, which do nothing to help Gazans who are left to survive amid rubble while suffering from malnutrition. In February 2024, Levy called upon the international community to force peace on Israel.
Using individual stories as illustrations of facts on the ground, Levy points to how Israelis ignore the fate of Gazans unless “Gaza is shooting.” A combination of polluted water, sewage emptied into the sea, and limited electricity are the realities of everyday life in Gaza. The concept formulated in 2006 by Dov Weissglas of putting “Gazan residents on a diet” has reached the level of starvation. Levy defines the ongoing distress caused to Palestinian families that are separated because they live in different territories and are broken apart by Israeli laws. He writes of the father and brother who are both incarcerated in Israeli prisons, and recounts stories about Palestinians denied timely access to permits over crossings when they desperately need medical attention. Demolitions of civilian homes and buildings by missiles occur when the Shin Bet decides that there is a viable reason. One young, confused Palestinian asked when interviewed by Levy, “Why do they bomb us with missiles, especially when I am an ordinary resident and don’t belong to any party or organization?”
Throughout the book, Levy asserts that Gaza exemplifies the original sin of the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 and “shapes its [Israel’s] moral profile.” Exactly because Gaza is occupied, Israel is responsible for its fate. Levy calls for the Gaza Strip to be opened up and reconnected to the West Bank. Levy mocks the fence built around the Gaza Strip and the military bigwigs who attended the unveiling. The cost was astronomical, which Levy compares to the pittance of 3,200 shekels that the nation pays out to its disabled citizens.
“Israeli security” is the catch-all phrase for the reasoning behind the separation wall costing billions. Levy mocks the “security cult,” which has created Gaza as a cage. He lays out his solution: “The only way to deal with the threat from Gaza is to give Gaza its freedom.” He asks, “Who knows how much more Israel will entrench itself, surround itself with walls, fences, and barriers, and imprison its neighbors even more.”
Levy posits that Israel could have taken a different route post-1948. Compensation, rehabilitation, and assistance to counterbalance the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands. “Violence is always brutal and immoral,” Levy intones, whether it is by “terrorists” or by “state-sanctioned uniformed violence.” The first section ends with a series of questions posed by Levy. His top inquiry to his fellow Israelis is, “Do we want to continue living like this?”
Part II
In the aftermath of the October 7 attacks, Levy visits the south of Israel and describes it as “bloodcurdling, shocking, upsetting, and frightening.” He chronicles stories of horror and writes, “The smell of death is everywhere.” He bears witness to “the destruction, ashes, and devastation,” acknowledging how hard it was to observe—while expressing his hope that Israel will limit their response to a short-term air attack on Gaza. Rather, what is to follow is a nightmare of the “most turbulent [year] in Israel’s history since the state’s founding.” He comments, “I found myself more isolated than ever.”
Why? The reason is his commitment to questioning the across-the-board incitement to equate the Hamas atrocities with a justification for the “loss of all restraint.” He sees Israelis moving toward the nationalist right-wing agenda, spurred on by the media (which Levy qualifies as a tool of the government and “an agent of nationalistic and militant emotions”), riling up citizens via tales of “kitsch and death.” Meanwhile, for Israelis, either Jewish or Arab, expressing concern for Palestinian lives in Gaza on social media, in jobs, or in universities results in questions from the police—as well as arrests.
While the rest of the world witnesses the ongoing decimation of Gaza, Levy asserts that the Israeli broadcasting networks consolidated into “a voice that supported, justified, and refused to question the war.” A disregard for coverage of bombed Gazan infrastructure, dying children, and a starving populace is nowhere to be seen.
Levy takes the Israeli left to task with the same anger he directs to those on the right. Their post-October 7 responses of “growing numb’ and “wising up” don’t cut it for him. He demands that they accept their “responsibility and guilt and silence.” Levy demands that they prepare to ask themselves, “Where were you when it all happened? Where? You were still sobering up? It’s time for that to end, because it’s already getting late. Very late.” Levy questions “their seriousness and resilience.” While he’s at it, Levy destroys the assertion that there is a difference between the Labor Party and the right-wing leadership. He claims that for all of Israel’s governments, the “DNA [for] baseless wars runs deep.”
Castigating the journalists who refer to Hamas as Nazis in what he labels “a repulsive display of Holocaust trivialization and denial,” Levy’s analysis is crystal clear: “This is the dark time. The time of the barbaric attack by Hamas and the time of the lost conscience and sense of reason in Israel.”
Less than two months after October 7, Levy has already surmised that Israel has prioritized the destruction of Gaza over saving the hostages. At this juncture, he is already seeing Israel’s goals receding and its crimes accumulating.” He observes, “A Hanukkah gift of humiliated Palestinians. What could bring more joy?”
By February 2024, Levy reiterates, “The Israeli public must wake up, and with it, the Biden administration.” He despairs at the potential incursion into Rafah, “the world’s biggest displaced persons camp.” He implores Israel, its leaders, and its people to finally “recognize the limits of force” and to come to terms with the horrors of October 7 and why it doesn’t justify every potential military move in their playbook. In March 2024, Levy writes, “Five months should be enough for you to get over not only your reaction, but also your conclusions.” On April 10, the six-month anniversary, Levy concludes that the ongoing destruction of Gaza is the “worst war” in Israel’s history, with no benefits.
While Levy drives home over and over the irreparable damage to “Israel’s moral reputation” and international standing, he doesn’t hesitate to stress that Israel had the choice to “punish the perpetrators and October 7…and move on.”
Levy delves into the Israeli psyche like a therapist trying to understand the dysfunctionality of a patient. Denial is at the top of Levy’s list when describing Israeli psychological coping strategies. He underscores that “Israel ignores international law” and states that until Israel is called to account and punished, nothing will change. Throughout the chapters, Levy laments that “nothing has been learned in war after war.” Public debate and national self-examination are non-existent. Levy bitterly suggests that the Israeli public is more concerned with the price of apartment acquisitions and hit pop singers. Arrogance and complacency are Levy’s depiction of the Israeli fallback position. Yet, he doubts that Israel will learn anything. He underscores that principle by proposing, “The threats of flattening Gaza prove only one thing: We haven’t learned a thing.”
Occupation and apartheid. For Levy, these are the two elements “which characterize the essence of the Israeli regime more than anything else.” Levy understands the term Zionism in its current iteration to mean “a belief in Jewish superiority between the [Jordan] river and the [Mediterranean] sea. Regarding “democracy,” Levy writes, “When an occupation stops being a temporary one, it defines the regime of the entire country.” With Israel only counting votes of part of the population under its rule, he asks, “How can one say that this is not what apartheid looks like?” In a difficult passage, Levy expresses, “It is not easy to say this, it’s hard to write it, but any vote for a Zionist party is a vote for a continued tyranny posing as a democracy.”
The need for the “moral imperative to look reality straight in the eye” is a continuous theme for Levy. In the section titled “A Population Transfer Under the Cover of War,” he delves into the unrestrained actions of Israeli settlers who terrorize Palestinians with threats to “leave their village within twenty-four hours, otherwise they would be killed.” Israeli activists who volunteer to sleep in those villages to protect families from daytime violence and nighttime invasions are attacked as well—beaten, pepper-sprayed, and bones broken.
The section on the abuse of Palestinian prisoners held at the Sde Teiman military base is stomach-churning. Hundreds of the prisoners, workers from Gaza who had permits, were arrested on October 7 without cause. They were blindfolded, hands zip-tied, and held without hearings. Levy underscores the “terrible competition over the magnitude of evil. There are no winners, only losers.” When Haaretz asks for a comment from the Prison Authority, they respond, “We are not familiar with the claims described [in your article], but to the best of our knowledge, they are not correct.”
Levy deconstructs military language and euphemisms used in responding to incidents, which has inured Israelis to the reality around them. Quoted IDF responses are numerous, disingenuous, and pro forma, along the lines of: “The circumstances of the case are currently being clarified.” When October 7 and Hamas are invoked, Levy counters that “none of this gives Israel the right to act similarly.” After expressing these views on an Israeli television show, Levy was promptly fired.
“Apathy” enrages Levy. His language is unfaltering, but he doesn’t desist. He writes, “Bloodthirstiness and sadism have come out of the closet in the past six months and are considered politically correct in Israel.” On the debate about war crimes, Levy suggests that “all decent Israelis must ask themselves if their country is guilty.” After sharing statistics on structural physical damage and the number of civilian casualties, Levy asks rhetorically, “Is it possible that these horrific figures can be without the commission of war crimes?” Levy doesn’t sidestep the answer he demands from logic: “Individuals are responsible for them, and they must be brought to justice…we can only hope that the International Criminal Court in the Hague will do its job.”
Levy believes that Israel, at its current nadir, “is a country without honor.” Ignoring the truth may alleviate the reality of disgrace, but it doesn’t change the facts. He references the February 2024 vote in the Israeli parliament to approve a proposal that would reject the “unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.” Objecting to the fact that Israelis “only feel compassion for ourselves,” the country has never “provoked such hatred as it has today.” By March of 2024, Levy had pegged that Israel would become an international pariah, with outcast status, damage to its economy, and the demise of its very soul.
With his final entry in June 2024, Levy hammered home the lost path of Israel and the “consciencectomy” it underwent in October 2023. He writes of his country:
“It had been sick for years; now it is dead…But every Saturday comes to an end, with warmongers emerging from their Shabbat lairs.”
In Levy’s afterword, composed when the number of deaths was above 36,000 (Reports state the number as approaching 47,000.), he asked his fellow citizens to acknowledge what was going on in Gaza in “their name” and to recognize the devolution of Israel’s moral character. Finally, in a paragraph of exhaustion, he asks, “What gives us the right to do all this? Where does it come from? What is it all for? Do we want to continue living like this?” He paints a picture of the whole spectrum of Israelis, from left to right, permeated with a poison that has infected their souls. He concludes, “Another war or two, and everyone will be Kahane.”
Levy believes that the multitude of Israelis remain locked into their narratives of what he describes as being “united in an eternal sense of victimhood.” He calls on Israel “to look inward, at long last, to see its own portrait.”
For American Jews who are uncomfortable with questioning the Israeli government, the Gaza War, and the Occupation, “The Checkpoint Women: Memories” demonstrates how courageous individuals on the ground in Israel, moved by their doubts about national policy, have become actors in the fight for Palestinian equality. It was a featured documentary in the 2024 Other Israel Film Festival.
Director Eliezer Yaari focuses on the specific stories of women, primarily over fifty-years-old, who became part of an organization known in Israel as Machsom Watch. In 2001, a group began going to checkpoints and crossings to monitor the behaviors and actions of IDF soldiers as they oversaw Palestinians trying to enter Israel from the West Bank for work, medical appointments, or necessary tasks.
Yaari sets the stage with information outlining that after a “wave of terrorism” resulted in hundreds of Israeli deaths and thousands of injuries, Israel began the erection of a separation wall between the “territories of the Palestinian Authority” and itself. Restriction of movement for Palestinians within the West Bank became a way of life.
Interviewing these activists, Yaari intercuts footage of their efforts with their testimonies. Each woman profiled shares her backstory and why she felt it was essential to become part of the struggle against entrenched policies on the ground.
Yehudit Elkana, now in her late eighties, had heard negative stories about what was happening at checkpoints. She started Women In Black. “You couldn’t stand idly by,” she recounted. Her father was a journalist for a liberal newspaper in Berlin. After reading Hitler’s Mein Kampf, he saw the writing on the wall and departed for Israel in 1933. Based on her family background, Elkana said, “It made it natural for her to engage in political activity against the Occupation.” Arriving in Bethlehem in the pre-dawn darkness when Palestinian workers arrived at 5:30 a.m., Elkana filmed interactions, made calls, and questioned tactics. When lucky, she would run into someone she knew, facilitating the challenge for a Palestinian with medical issues.
Commenting on the Separation Wall as one of the “cruelest undertakings” of the Occupation, Hanna Barag discussed the “shock” of how Israel forces Palestinians to live. She stated, “There is no freedom of movement. Palestinian ambulances can’t move in the streets of Jerusalem.” Her reaction to the situation was “shock and horrification.” There is a definitive irony in seeing a guard in tefillin praying next to barbed wire, while below him school children are having their backpacks searched. Barag overhears a soldier saying loudly to a colleague upon seeing her, “Here’s another of Arafat’s whores.” Waiting until a few hours later, with her emotions calmed, Barag approached the young man and asked, “Would you talk that way to your grandmother?”
These women are not to be trifled with or easily intimidated. Dafna Banai has been a Machsom member for twenty years. She came from a staunchly Zionist and military background. Banai spoke about how the subtext of the Occupation became evident to her. Rather than being an issue of security, she realized the impetus was to “break Palestinian society and to hurt people and entrench a sense of Israeli “superiority.”
Banai has a run-in with a woman who confronts her about her activities, asking, “Are you Jewish? Whose side are you on?” before continuing her missive, insisting that “Jews are on the side of God.” When Banai inquires, “What about Mitzvot between man and his fellow man?” the response is swift and uncompromising. “No, no, no,” the woman stipulates. “Torah says we must wipe out our enemies.”
That philosophy is revealed to Banai when she travels to the Jordan Valley, where the Fassayil village of 5,000 people gets water only four days per week, and homes are demolished with regularity. Banai comments, “You can’t see such distress and remain indifferent to it.”
Natalie “Natanya” Ginsburg, 82-years-old, grew up in a small village in South Africa and emigrated to Israel in 1964. It took almost four decades for her to gain “clarity” on the situation in her adopted country. A chance encounter with a Machsom member handing out literature was the moment when she realized she needed to become engaged. Since that time, Ginsburg was present for weekly actions. Footage shows her visiting a Palestinian farm while the owner plowed his land. Everything was low-keyed until a settler with a walkie-talkie and a gun showed up. The IDF wasn’t far behind. A female soldier told the Palestinian he could only plow in areas where “he can’t see the neighboring settlement.” While smoking a cigarette with the farmer, she tries to smooth things over, fully aware of the Kafkaesque situation and nonsensical rules. Ginsburg remarks, “Settlers are running the army. If this isn’t apartheid, I’d like to know what is.”
Jerusalem-born Neta Efrony was a television film editor for three decades. When a friend told her about Machsom Watch, she immediately knew it was what she wanted to do to “oppose the Occupation.” Efrony speaks about using her camera like a “bulletproof vest.” One soldier informs her menacingly that if she gets in the way of their work, he’ll arrest her. He punctuates the threat with the derisive comment, “Go to B’Tselem (a human rights organization), go wherever you like.” At the Atara Checkpoint, she meets a father trying to escort his young daughter to a doctor’s appointment. He is repeatedly refused, but finally gets permission after numerous attempts.
Another checkpoint, another day.
The uniform in charge announces that only Palestinians with a blue identification card will be approved. All decisions rest on his predilections. Even a corpse being transported is subject to scrutiny.
“Man is created in God’s image, and that’s true of all people, whether they’re Jews or Arabs,” states Kibbutz-born 69-year-old Hagit Back. She says, “I’ve been a leftist my whole life, from the moment I opened my eyes as a conscious being.” Through Machsom Watch, Back saw an opportunity to create interpersonal relationships on the ground. Self-describing as a “privileged, Ashkenazi Jew,” Back wanted “to apologize through action.” She traveled around to observe what was happening on the ground, wrote reports, and put them on the Machsom website. If a Palestinian is injured, the group reports it to the civilian police. A clip is shown of an officer thanking them for their efforts. He mentions the homemade weapons he uncovers once a month while admitting that checking 5,000 Palestinians “isn’t justified, but there’s no other solution.” Back emphasized that she saw enlisted men and women trying to act with compassion. Her complaint was with “the regime that sends them there.”
The women see it as their obligation to push back against government policies. Silvia Piterman, 77, came to Israel from Argentina. She joined Machsom after the army entered Jenin.
95-year-old Dalia Golomb spoke about her grandfather, a member of BILU who came to “Eretz Yisrael” in 1882. Golomb’s family has deep roots in Israeli history. Her father, Eliyahu Golomb, was a founder of the Haganah. His story of being whipped and humiliated by the Turkish authorities when he wouldn’t mill flour for them on Shabbat was a narrative that left a deep emotional imprint. Golomb was shocked when she witnessed the treatment of Palestinians at the checkpoints. The degradation of women at the crossing point triggered her. She asked, “Who is doing the humiliation now? It is us, our people, oppressing another people.” When she was younger, she led tours to the West Bank to show where the state of Israel had appropriated agricultural lands. Golomb affirmed that seeing the reality “simply destroyed her.” She concluded, “It doesn’t serve Israel’s security. It has nothing to do with it.”
For Rachel Afek, who grew up in a Kibbutz, the experience of witnessing the checkpoints changed her life. “So much suffering,” she recounts when discussing home demolitions in the Hajjah village. “It should be one land for two people,” she emphasized.
In February of 2023, there was a major attack on the village of Huwara by Israeli settlers after an unidentified Palestinian shooter killed two Israelis. This action would be called a “pogrom” by the Israeli military. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich escalated the situation when he called for Huwara to be “wiped out.”
“Huwara became a symbol,” said Dafna Banai. “I feel responsible. I’m Israeli. The things done here are paid for with my tax money…and if I can’t change them, then I’m also responsible.”
As Americans prepare for Trump 2.0, they can take a break by watching “The Bibi Files,” a portrait of Benjamin Netanyahu and his ongoing quest to outrun the corruption charges that have dogged him since 2016. Netanyahu rushed to congratulate Trump on his election victory, and one can only imagine the plans the two men have in store as they cement their mutual admiration society.
Consumed with political survival regardless of the cost, Trump and Netanyahu will take any action to put distance between themselves and the legal ramifications of their respective transgressions. There is no regard for the toll it will take on their countries and the rest of the world.
The documentary is directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Alex Gibney, who was offered the police interrogation tapes of Netanyahu. He received them during the judicial crisis in Israel, and before October 7. Gibney reached out to Bloom with the material in the summer of 2023, when Israeli street demonstrations were at a fevered pitch. Attracted by the similarities between Netanyahu and her portrait of Roger Ailes, the media power manipulator who changed the face of American news, Bloom was onboard.
Netanyahu’s fight to outrun the charges that could land him in jail has led to decisions that have created one of the worst conflagrations in the region — impacting Israelis, Palestinians, neighboring countries, and even diaspora Jews.
Just as Trump has been in and out of courtrooms, Netanyahu’s dealings have been under scrutiny for almost a decade. It began with a look into alleged bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, with different teams of police investigators designated to look into the assorted charges. In February 2019, the police presented their findings to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, a judge appointed by Netanyahu. The official indictments came down in November of that year and were brought simultaneously: Case 1000, Case 2000, and Case 4000. Netanyahu has the distinction of being the first Israeli Prime Minister criminally indicted while serving in office.
Nimrod Novik, a former senior policy advisor to Shimon Peres, states: “Government officials are not allowed to take gifts. Period. Others were sent to prison. No one is above the law.”
The film culls from thousands of hours of leaked tapes and includes a full range of characters. Even Trump donor Miriam Adelson makes an appearance. Intercut is the backstory of Netanyahu’s biography, talking heads, scenes of street demonstrations, footage of the October 7 attack, and finally, the ongoing destruction of Gaza as the “war continues aimlessly.”
Israeli investigative journalist Raviv Drucker acts as a guide to the narrative. (He is also a producer.) Drucker has been sued by the Netanyahus three times, and the channel he works for has been threatened. A presence throughout, Drucker adds comments, context, and overview (“Bibi thought he was immune.”) as Bloom formulates her story.
The film’s opening scene shows an empty chair in front of a table with a glass and a bottle of Pellegrino. A map of the Middle East is on the wall. Here, Netanyahu is read his rights, and his cross-examination takes place.
Netanyahu evades his interviewers, slams his hand down in rage and antagonism, and for ninety-five percent of the time does not recall events. He refutes inquiries with retorts such as, “You are asking me a delusional question.”
The 115-minute movie has two parallel threads. The first examines Netanyahu’s alleged crimes and the direct and tangential players who are grilled. The second paints a picture of Netanyahu, his personal history, and his familial relationships. His wife Sara and son Yair have prominent screen time. Uzi Beller, a childhood friend, talks about the duality of Netanyahu’s personality. He describes him as two people — Bibi vs. Netanyahu. Beller shares that Netanyahu never had a lot of close friends and was overshadowed by his older brother, Yonatan (Yoni), who was the “star of the family.”
Yoni is known as the hero of the July 1976 Entebbe operation. As a Lt. Colonel, he was the leader of the raid to free over one hundred hostages held by West German and Palestinian hijackers. He was the sole Israeli casualty.
Yoni’s death was a fateful event that changed the trajectory of Netanyahu’s life. Despite his devastation and loss, Netanyahu picked up his brother’s mantle and charted a new path.
Netanyahu became the recurring public face of Israel when he got the role of Ambassador to the United Nations in 1984. He carved a niche for himself as the “protector of Israel.” When called upon by the media to discuss terrorism, clips show him delivering the hardline quote, “You don’t surrender.”
Sara, the third wife of Netanyahu (m. 1991), presents as a lightning rod for the descent into an extravagant lifestyle that required exorbitant gifts from benefactors that would turn into dangerous quid-pro-quos. Yair Netanyahu, the eldest of their three children, completes the triad. An ultra-right winger who spouts tirades about leftists and immigrants, he complains that the police are conducting a “witch hunt” (Sound familiar?) and are “acting like the Gestapo.”
In 1993, Netanyahu was embroiled in a sex scandal while running for office. Several comments suggest that it was after this incident that a relationship dynamics shift with Sara occurred. The possibility is posed: “Is Netanyahu afraid of his wife?” Descriptions of Sara are those of a “control freak” whose behavior is erratic, possibly due to her drinking. (One of the ongoing presents delivered to the household is twenty bottles of champagne per week. Code name: Pink.)
Domestic staff share that Sara intervenes in policy and media decisions and determines who can be trusted. She falsifies invoices, is an abusive employer, as well as a “screamer.” When the police query her, she accuses them of “trying to bring the Prime Minister down.” She qualifies their claims as “nonsense,” the identical phrase her husband uses. To turn the tables, Sara asks her interrogators derisively, “Aren’t you ashamed?”
The trail of gratuities, which began with $110 cigars (Code name: Green Leaves.) and Sara’s champagne, escalated to hundreds of millions of dollars in question. At the onset of the investigations, Netanyahu’s lawyer advised him to resign. However, Netanyahu refused and continued to acquire “sugar daddies” from around the world. Two key players engaged in unsavory deals are the focus. Israeli-born Arnon Milchan, Hollywood producer, billionaire, and former arms dealer, is introduced. He says to the police cavalierly, “I give gifts. So what? They [the Netanyahus] like the good life.” One piece of jewelry for Sara was a 42-karat gold bracelet encrusted with diamonds. In return, Netanyahu talked to his then-finance minister, Yair Lapid, about giving Milchan a ten-year tax break on filing his overseas income. And then there was the matter of Milchan’s rescinded American visa. Netanyahu interceded on his behalf.
Netanyahu’s involvement with Shaul Elovitch, telecom tycoon and the owner of Eurocom Group, revolved around Elovich needing 200 million dollars and Netanyahu’s signature on specific paperwork. In exchange for the editorial team of his website, Walla, skewing the news to give positive coverage of the Netanyahu administration, Elovitch gets what he wants. The deal includes changing article content or titles, attacking opponents, and more flattering photos of Sara.
When Netanyahu won a fourth term by a landslide in 2015, he perceived himself as inseparable from the state of Israel. He became “King Bibi,” who was above the system. Center and left parties began to distance themselves from him when forming potential coalitions, and soon Netanyahu was reaching out to far-right politicians and extremists that “he wouldn’t have taken photos with three years prior.” Itamar Ben-Gvir, a Kahanist serving as Minister of National Security, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich are now his allies.
Netanyahu has been prime minister longer than Ben-Gurion. Nimrod Novak comments, “L’État, c’est moi! When someone serves too long, it gets into their head.”
Various speakers put forth that after the 2015 victory, Netanyahu’s character flaws came out in full force. His speech, riling up the crowds before Rabin’s assassination, showed his opportunism. His appearances in front of Congress during Obama’s term and in July 2024 demonstrated his willingness to use American Jews as pawns in his agenda. Unsurprisingly, Netanyahu has stated, “The liberal Jews have forgotten what it means to be Jewish.” To create a broader base, he has openly courted American Christian Evangelical Zionists.
As the fighting drags on, more organizations are calling the Israeli military actions genocide. Meanwhile, the hostages remain in captivity. Netanyahu continues his “Total victory” policy while keeping one eye squarely on evading jail.
The choices Netanyahu has made along the way: The suitcases of millions in cash to Hamas from Qatar, putting Israel in turmoil over the Supreme Court because he saw the judiciary as a threat to his freedom, the German submarine affair, his failure to prioritize the hostages, the killing in Gaza, they are all conscious decisions.
When Bloom spoke as part of a panel arranged by the Israeli expat group UnXeptable (Tagline: We are not our government.), she posited that Netanyahu was willfully continuing the war and had cast off the “language of diplomacy.” She added, “You can’t keep leading your country by military force forever.”
Bloom also quotes Netanyahu’s Chief-of-Staff, who wouldn’t appear on camera. He summed up Netanyahu’s mindset succinctly and without parsing words.
“Bibi is motivated by his sense of legacy. He wants to be seen as a storied, smart leader, touched by the Messiah. He thinks he is bigger than everyone. [He has] no belief in anyone else. Loyalty is key. [He is] motivated by a sense of his own greatness. He thinks he is King David.”
The film had a World Premiere at DocNY, at the JCC’s Other Israel Film Festival, and has its official U.S. release on December 11. Jolt is the distributor, and they put no limits on the material. It is also available online as a pay-for-view.
“The Bibi Files” cannot be shown in Israel due to privacy laws. However, transcripts of testimonies have been widely disseminated.
Countries once seen as abiding by democratic norms are now backsliding with alarming alacrity. There is much to learn from “The Bibi Files” about how an individual leader demanding personal loyalty over ethical behavior can destroy governmental norms.
Children are less physically able to withstand and survive severe weather occurrences. Ironically, they contribute the least to factors creating the climate crisis while suffering the most significant impacts.
With a shift in American and Israeli leadership, the armed hostilities between the Israeli government and Hamas in May, and street riots within mixed Israeli cities, Diaspora Jews are beginning to question the traditionally...
Greenblatt’s ADL bio asserts that the objective of the ADL is “to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” It’s evident that in his lackluster response to the performance at Madison Square Garden, Greenblatt failed his objective.
The amendment language states that it will protect the right to abortion for all New Yorkers. It will also close all loopholes in the State Constitution to ensure that no New Yorker can be discriminated against by the government, regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, pregnancy status, disability status, or whether someone is LGBTQ+.
“Children of Peace” raised the question of why it is so much easier for people to dismiss the concept of a joint society grounded in co-equality than to live with ongoing combat and destruction.
Khouri and Wilkinson advocate for a commitment to “deep listening,” stressing that engaging with stories from the other side will allow a shift from prioritizing internalized viewpoints to being open to new perspectives despite the angst it triggers.
As de Bethune wrote, “In the 1970s, Harvey Milk encouraged queer people to come out wherever they were, to increase awareness not only of the ubiquity of LGBTQ folk but also our incredible diversity and ordinariness. In my own fashion, I’m answering Harvey’s call.”
With Jewish extremists trying to present Palestinian citizens of Israel as a fifth column, Standing Together is focusing on the de-escalation of those inflammatory messages, reframing the dialogue with their code words: “We’re in this together.”
