The Gatekeepers 🔴 Inside Israel’s Internal Security Agency

Brandon Sullivan 🎥 against a backdrop of the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel shares his thoughts on a 2012 film directed by Dror Moreh.

Frequent contributor to TPQ Frankie asked in a comment:

Am I the only Quiller (not the death toll) that thinks fair play to Hamas for embarrassing Mossad....

I'll leave aside my own thoughts on this, and apologise for pedantry in advance, but the main agency that will be embarrassed by the astonishing attacks carried out by Hamas will be Shin Bet, who are responsible for preventing such attacks, a task they took over from Mossad in recent decades.

I only know this because of an excellent documentary and accompanying book which I watched and read back in 2012. Having watched the news avidly this weekend, and feeling fairly gloomy at the inevitable Israeli onslaught against some of the most defenceless people in the world, I re-watched the documentary to review it. It remains a riveting and vital piece of work.

Interestingly, I think the first time I contacted AM at TPQ was when I saw this film. Someone had written some graffiti on the cinema celebrating the Sabra and Shatila massacre. I took a photo, sent it in, and it was published.

The film consists of archival footage and interviews with all of the surviving heads of Shin Bet. Sometimes, cutting-edge technology is used to present a photo as a 3D landscape. The effects are hugely effective.

It's worth taking a moment to discuss the surviving heads of Shin Bet before getting to the themes discussed in the documentary. Their names and years of their leadership are noted below.

Avraham Shalom (1981–1986)

Yaakov Peri (1988–1994)

Carmi Gillon (1995–1996)

Ami Ayalon (1996–2000)

Avi Dichter (2000–2005)

Yuval Diskin (2005–2011)

Diskin, a man who looked the part (along with Ayalon in particular) discussed how he felt after "targeted operations" to kill "terrorists." Like all of the leaders, with the exception of Shalom, he was reflective, and thoughtful, and seemed to carry a burden of responsibility. But, all that said, Diskin still gave the orders to kill, many times. Diskin was 11 when the Six-Day War broke out and was heavily influenced (some might say radicalised) by a book called If Israel Lost The War. . Diskin noted that even when he carried out a "sterile" operation with no "collateral damage" he still felt uneasy about the power that he could wield. About the Israeli campaigns against their enemies, Diskin simply states that they had "no strategy, just tactics." This thought is supported by Ayalon who notes at the end of the film that Israel "wins every battle but loses the war."

Avi Dichter uses an anecdote to discuss the misunderstanding between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel needed to know how many people were under its control in the occupied territories and, so, it sent soldiers, including Dichter to count them. They learned how to say "we have come to count you" but hadn't learned to accent the word so it would be properly understood by the Palestinians between the doors they banged on. When asked by frightened civilians what the heavily armed young men wanted with them, they were informed, albeit inaccurately, that "we are here to castrate you" rather than "we are here to count you." As with all of the other leaders, Dichter appears open and willing to embrace his former enemies and committed to a political settlement. It's therefore disappointing, and confusing, to see that he is currently a minister in Bibi Netanyahu's government.

The avuncular Yaakov Peri discussed the "identifier technique" when, as a young soldier, he could occupy a village or town, herd all the military-aged men into the middle and then use an informer, hidden behind a mask and in a vehicle, to point out who had "trained in Syria" or was otherwise involved in "terrorism." Many Quillers will recognise this methodology from British colonial methods, including in the North, when, among others, Jean McConville was alleged to have been an "identifier." Peri was one of the Shin Bet leaders deeply affected by the murder of Yitzhak Rabin and dismayed at the subsequent failure of the Oslo peace accords.

Carmi Gillon handed in his resignation over the murder of Rabin, but it was rejected. Under his tenure, physical brutality – involving the physical shaking of detainees – increased and was codified as legal. One small man died under interrogation. As Gillon put it "died of shaken baby syndrome."

The two most interesting men to me were Ari Ayalon and Avraham Shalom. I'll discuss Shalom in the context of an incident, which became known as the "Bus 300 affair."

The Bus 300 Affair

On the 12th April 1984, four men, including at least two teenagers (Jamal Mahmoud Qabalan, Muhammad Baraka, Majdi Abu Jumaa, and Subhi Abu Jumaa), who were reportedly not members of any paramilitary group, hijacked a number 300 bus. The New York Times wrote that:

Some of the bus passengers described three of the hijackers as young. One hostage gave the ages as 16, 19 and 20 and remarked, 'They behaved very nicely, this I must say.' The leader was described as older and harder.

The report went on:

Hostages and officials said the hijackers wanted to cross into Egypt and release the passengers there in exchange for the release of 500 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

The army fired at the wheels of the bus, which sped to a halt. There was a standoff, in which one of the hijackers was killed, but two were brought off the bus unharmed. The army stormed the bus after identifying that the hijackers were "amateurs."

The condition of the two men brought off the bus is important. Here are photos of them:

Reports came out that all four hijackers had been killed in the assault to free the hostages. It was a lie. What had happened, according to Avraham Shalom was that "the army pounced on them … broke their bones … it was a lynching." Shalom arrived on the scene and asked what was going on. He was told that the two captured men had been badly beaten by the army. Shalom, the head of Shin Bet, a man with the highest political contacts in Israel, says in the documentary that he said "Hit them again and finish them." His men did as they were told, as Shalom put it they "smashed their heads in with a rock." Other reports state that it was an iron bar as well as rocks. Inquiries and a trial followed. Some were convicted. Shalom was ambivalent. Whilst he was steadfastly in support of a two-state solution for the conflict, he bluntly stated that he "didn't want to see terrorists in court." Other former heads of Shin Bet describe how people feared Shalom, and that he was a "bully." Nevertheless, he had to resign over his arbitrary death sentence.

Ari Ayalon, discussing the pardons of all those convicted of beating two defenceless teenagers to death, said that "the Prime Minister and the cabinet" failed.

Shin Bet and the Politics of Occupation

A total lack of trust in politicians, except for Rabin, is a constant theme amongst the leaders of Shin Bet, along with the need for a political settlement. Ayalon was dismayed at the illegal settlements, noting that the settlers were beginning to believe themselves as "the masters" and fearing their political and paramilitary power. Ayalon believes these fears were justified, citing the murder of Rabin as evidence.

Diskin is read a quote from an Israeli public intellectual, Yeshayahu Leibowitz:

A state ruling over a hostile population of one million foreigners will necessarily become a Shin Bet state, with all that this implies for education, freedom of speech and thought and democracy. The corruption found in every colonial regime will affix itself to the State of Israel. The administration will have to suppress an Arab uprising on one hand and acquire Quislings, or Arab traitors on the other.

Diskin simply replies that he "agrees with every word of it."

At a conference in London aimed at reducing conflict, during the second intifada, Ami Ayalon described being approached by the internationally renowned psychiatrist and human rights activist Eyad Al-Sarraj, who bluntly told Ayalon that, the Palestinians were victorious. Ayalon pointed out that they were losing hundreds, soon to be thousands of men, and that they were losing their "dream of statehood" asking "What kind of victory is that?" Al-Sarraj replied:

Ami, I don't understand you. You still don't understand us. For us, victory is seeing you suffer. That's all we want. The more we suffer, the more you'll suffer. Finally, after 50 years, we've reached a balance of power, a balance: your F-16 jet fighter versus our suicide bomber.

Ayalon said he suddenly understood the "suicide bomber phenomenon" and also " our reaction very differently:

How many operations did we launch because we hurt, because when they blow up buses it really hurts us and we want revenge? How often have we done that?

The final word can be left to the most vicious of the Shin Bet leaders, Shalom. Speaking more than a decade ago, he said Israel would have to "speak to everyone" and that for "Israel, it's too much of a luxury not to speak to everyone." He went on:

We are making the lives of millions of people unbearable … the future is bleak … we've become cruel … cruel to ourselves, but especially the occupied.

Sitting and waiting on the Israeli reaction to the Hamas rampage, it seems that nobody in the Israeli establishment listens to their most dedicated and professional killing outfit.

You can watch the film here. I hope that you do, and welcome your comments.

⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys.