When Gillian Mosely explored Israel-Palestine in her first documentary, The Tinderbox, the reality on the ground in “the land” was very different from what she found when she began her follow-up film, Planet Israel. After she arrived in Israel one year after October 7, bombs launched by Iran soon began falling.

This time around, Mosely delves into the Israeli psychological mindset and the emotional legacy of historical oppression, culminating in the Holocaust. As writer, director, and producer of Planet Israel, Mosely packs a wide range of material into the movie, creating a multi-themed exploration of history, psychology, the rise of totalitarianism in Israel, and the Israeli media’s failure to disseminate information. Mosely includes extensive interviews with experts, and people on the street in Israel and Gaza — the latter conducted by a Palestinian crew.

Once again, Mosely is searching for answers about what is driving the behavior of Israeli Jews, and the now-widening divide between Jewish religious ethics and the conduct of the state of Israel.

With her own backstory steeped in famous Jewish progenitors, from chief rabbis in Spain dating back centuries on one side of her family and British forebears who came to England in the 1800s on the other, Mosely (who is British-American) is well placed to examine the role of the British in Palestine.

Mosely has lined up excellent interviewees. Depending on one’s exposure to Jewish and Israeli thought leaders, some faces may be unfamiliar. However, a key connective thread throughout is Mosely’s questioning of why Jews continue to see themselves as the underdog, as she ponders the ongoing connection to a “victim narrative.”

Rabbi Avi Dabush, a Kibbutz Nirim survivor of the Hamas attacks, Executive Director of Rabbis for Human Rights, and a candidate in this year’s Israeli election, lays the groundwork with his story of evolution. He discusses his road from being an anti-Oslo supporter to becoming a peace activist, rejecting what that ideology offered — a philosophy that maintains, “It’s all about us.” On the held assumption that Jews could “return after 2,000 years” with no issues because the “land is waiting for us,” he told Mosely, “I didn’t believe that.” He defined that movement as “a very violent struggle,” black and white. For Dabush, it comes down to a “conflict between Jewish supremacy and universalism.” He concludes, “We are in a moment of reckoning within Judaism.”

The extreme views of American rabbi Meir Kahane “have mushroomed” in Israel. Ben-Gvir, an acolyte of Kahane’s who is in Netanyahu’s current government, underscores how the marginal has become mainstream when a pariah becomes a minister.

Israeli-British Jew of Iraqi descent, Avi Shlaim, a well-known scholar and Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, is on hand to comment on the variations of Zionism, the conflict between socialism and nationalism in its development, and the line from Ze’ev Jabotinsky and his “Iron Wall” treatise to Benjamin Netanyahu. He defines the British role when they enter the picture in 1915, explaining, “They made incompatible promises (to Jews and Arabs) because they wanted the Ottomans defeated.” Following the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the British Mandate lasted from 1920 to 1948. Shlaim clarifies how Jews began building infrastructure while Arabs felt marginalized as their land was usurped. By 1948, Britain, overwhelmed by the situation, called on the United Nations to get involved.

Having done research in released Israeli archives, Shlaim points out that the partition lines drawn up were influenced by the “horror of the Holocaust.” It did not take into account the native Palestinian population; 750,000 were displaced during the Nakba. Mosely comments, “Why are we surprised the Palestinians have resisted?”

Perhaps most importantly, Shlaim reveals that the archives document that in 1949, three major Arab rulers wanted to negotiate, “but Israelis wanted to keep 78 percent of Palestine” with no “right of return” for Palestinian refugees.

Shlaim states his thoughts on Netanyahu and his role in Israel’s trajectory plainly. “Netanyahu is a right-wing nationalist and a racist,” he said. “The dominant theme in his career is the fight against Palestinian statehood.”

There is photographic documentation of death and destruction from 10/7 and in Gaza. Mosley outlines the specific devastation wrought by the weapons employed by Hamas and Israel. Michael, a former IDF officer and now a member of the veteran organization Breaking the Silence, speaks about the Israeli incursion (“Operation Swords of Iron”) into Gaza. He addresses how “behaviors in the Occupied Territories are brought back into Israel,” which leads to “relativized morality.” Additionally, Michael outlines the use of AI to “produce up to 100 daily bombing targets,” which makes combat feel “like a video game.” The film’s animation reinforces Mosely’s concept of “the gamification of war.”

Mosely turns to average Israeli citizens for their opinions. They vary. Although a Pew Research survey of May 2024 indicates that 73 percent of Jewish Israelis support a “robust military response to 10/7,” one man tells Mosely that the October attack was “more worse than Nazis.” Another suggests Israel should be advancing toward “Greater Israel” borders, which would include “Egypt to Turkey.” Conversely, a demonstrator holding a sign picturing an abducted hostage expresses his regret about “Palestinian citizens’ loss of life.” A woman in her twenties suggests, “They need to do what they need to do in order to protect their people.” She emphasizes that she rejects a binary of “good and bad” behaviors. Mosely struggles to comprehend, “What makes people turn a blind eye to wide-scale atrocities committed in their name?”

Mosely takes the Israeli media to task for failing to inform the public about what was transpiring in Gaza. Although acknowledging that Netanyahu’s government had bullied journalists and placed his own talking heads on television, she stresses that the total disregard for the Palestinian war experience created a “parallel reality.” Meanwhile, the exactitude of death and destruction in Gaza was seen daily in countries around the world.

Dr. Ayala Panievsky describes the studies she conducted on Israeli journalism and its self-censorship about what was occurring in Gaza. “You can’t understand the Israeli mindset without understanding the information gap,” she said. Panievsky related how, during the first six months of the war in Gaza, only four out of 800 news stories reported on the carnage. Two showed visual footage. There was no imagery of people buried under the rubble. This, Panievsky states, created skewed “moral cues,” which led to a “Nothing to see here” mentality. She remarked that when the world called Israel out, Israelis responded to it as “antisemitism.”

The section on creeping totalitarianism in Israel was all too familiar, as Netanyahu and Trump have been operating from the same playbook, which Mosely calls a “Handbook for Authoritarian Rulers.” Previously marginalized actors have entered the mainstream, while the right-wing government “manipulates citizens.”

I found the conversations about Jewish trauma particularly valuable. In the diaspora and in Israel, they are distinct, yet related and intertwined.

Daniel Bar-Tal, political psychologist and social scientist, sets the table with his evaluation. He outlined how, after the October attack, Israelis were now living in trauma. This ushers in very extreme views. “They speak about another Holocaust,” he said. “Israel’s response to all is violence. Everything is okay.” In essence, because 6 million Jews were exterminated, the lesson becomes one of “moral disengagement.” Israelis are living in what Bar-Tal terms “a culture of conflict,” where the entities involved see the struggle as having a zero-sum nature and as being irresolvable.

Mosely inquires, “Have we, the abused, become the abusers?”

Three female speakers engaged in trauma, peacebuilding, and reconciliation work assess Jewish trauma and the collective mental health issues of Israelis and diaspora Jews.

Dr. Esti Galili-Weisstub offers, “I believe that mental health is something that can be treated.” She evaluates the role of “historical memory, which includes a biological level.” Coming from a Jungian background, she follows Jung’s belief in the collective unconscious as an umbrella for the personal. “In every generation, someone wanted to kill us [the Jews]. That feeds into personal identity.” Talking about the Israeli psyche, she said, “Israelis feel fragile. When you’re fragile, you’re paranoid. When you are paranoid, you project. This makes a person blind to their own aggression.” However, she points out that when you take responsibility, “You’re combating feelings of hopelessness. You do things differently.”

“Feelings of being unsafe make it difficult to empathize,” Patty Abozaglo agreed. She also cited DNA changes according to epigenetics and generational impact. “If you feel you are a victim, your response is often an out-of-proportion response. “When we are in that place, it’s very difficult to see that we need help.” Yet, Abozaglo strongly underscored, “We all have responsibility in healing our own traumas. And that applies to the leaders.” Abozaglo admitted, “It’s not easy. It takes time, but the personal is linked to the collective.” Her top takeaway was the need to “distinguish the past from the present and make a decision to move on.”

Dr. Julia Chaitin concurred, “It’s a deep part of our identity. You don’t change that easily. Most Jewish Israelis, when they look at the Palestinians, see themselves as the victims.” However, when questioned about the complicity of all Gazans in 10/7, Chaitin is unequivocal in her answer. “I can tell you, no 10-year-old is involved, no 5-year-old is involved, no baby is involved.”

Mosely presents stats that show the number of those killed in wars from 1947 through 2023. It presents a very different story from the Israeli Jewish perception.

Depicting how Palestinians have been impacted, Mosely introduces conversations with Gazans trying to survive another day. There is the young boy whose cousin was slain in the bombing of Khan Younis; the grandmother whose four-month-old grandson died from exposure to the cold; the older man who has lost forty relatives. They reappear later to speak about their former lives. The boy states, “I used to play with my friends. Most of them have been killed.” The 75-year-old farmer, who is haunted by the bereavement within his extended family circle, states wearily, “No one could have imagined it would get to this point.”

Mosely takes a step back to address an underlying question: The impact of the Israeli government’s actions on the “reputation of Jews everywhere,” while potentially “fueling antisemitism.”

The dice land squarely on the current rift between Jews: A national state identity vs. the heart of the Jewish religion. Loyalty to Israel or to Judaism itself. Jews globally are grappling with this challenge. Netanyahu, in a 2015 visit to France, pushed the concept that he personifies Jews worldwide as a “representative of the entire Jewish people.”

Not accepting that premise, Mosely delivers results from a 2025 poll that shows 40 percent of British Jews said that “Israel’s actions in Gaza had weakened their attachment to the state,” and 37 percent “did not consider themselves Zionists.” Mosely posits that in the diaspora, “Jews like her [in Britain] are abandoning the state in droves.” (Over 100,000 Israelis have left the country since the war began.)

With a Penn State University March 2025 poll showing that 82 percent of Israelis support expelling Palestinians from Gaza, it’s hard to square what comes next for the global Jewish community. The “Jewish split” is perhaps most clearly illustrated by the widely divergent opinions of two rabbis featured by Mosely.

Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro, who believes that “Zionism exists as an ideology,” said, “We were peaceful people. They wanted to change the Jewish people from a religion to a nationality. In order to get a state, we have to change our personalities.”

A succinctly different position is offered by Rabbi Mani Gothman. Serving as a military rabbi in the IDF, his “picture of victory” for Gaza is as follows: “Expel, deport, settle.”

When I spoke with Mosely, she told me her goal in portraying Israel’s moral crisis was to “inform debate in a very direct manner.” In Planet Israel, she ignites a forum for discussion. Mosely wants to see the end of the weaponization of Jewish trauma, which she believes has led to the loss of “moral cues.” With the “lines muddled,” Mosely hopes her efforts to come to terms with an Israel grappling to find its “moral compass” will inform others on how to “distinguish the past from the present.”

Meanwhile, a woman interviewed midway through the documentary, who sounded like she was originally from Brooklyn, informed Mosely about a list of 500 families willing to move into Gaza. “It’s already been planned,” she says.

Images: Courtesy of “Planet Israel”