The Gatekeepers (2012) on Netflix
PG-1320121h 41mDocumentaryHistoryWar
Six former heads of Shin Bet, Israel's security service, describe their part in the agency's counterterrorism campaign. They discuss their methods and whether the ends justified the means.
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- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.6/106,129 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, keeps its activities and its membership secret, and none of the men who have led it had ever spoken on camera about the work, much of it classified or highly sensitive. Six of them do so here: Avraham Shalom, Yaakov Peri, Carmi Gillon, Ami Ayalon, Avi Dichter and Yuval Diskin. They describe the work the agency took on after the Six-Day War and during the occupation of Palestinian territories, and they talk about their methods and whether the ends justified the means. Their accounts appear alongside archival footage and computer animation that reconstructs episodes from the agency's history.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Gatekeepers (2012)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Getting the former Shin Bet heads to talk was the hard part. Ami Ayalon, by then a Knesset member and a minister in the Security Cabinet, not only agreed to appear but helped director Dror Moreh recruit four other former Shin Bet chiefs: Avraham Shalom, Yaakov Peri, Carmi Gillon and Avi Dichter.
- Avraham Shalom initially refused to discuss his role in the 300 bus hijacking and the summary execution of two terrorists, which had forced his resignation. With careful prodding he agreed, and the affair became one of the film's seven segments.
- Israel's ambassador in Washington, D.C., Michael Oren, came out strongly against the film, deploring the way Avraham Shalom likens Israel to Nazi Germany. Oren said he had heard of Jews leaving screenings asking why they should keep supporting Israel.
