Political realities and dialectical daydreams

To the flicks last night. NetFlicks, to be accurate. Watched The Gatekeepers, a timely documentary interviewing six of the former directors of Shin Bet, the domestic Israeli intelligence agency, tasked with preventing terrorist attacks and so on. And oh boy if the film doesn't knock your socks off. Not to speak for anyone else, but I definitely came to this film with a preconceived notion of what I was about to hear, namely, apologetics. Surprisingly, and with one important exception, these were mostly absent. If you have watched the movie, you can probably guess that this exception is when Avraham Shalom, head of Shin Bet in the early 80s, states that morality plays no role in the prosecution of the war on terror. Aside from this, these former spooks come across as surprisingly dovish. It's nuanced. It's compelling. It's hella odd.

That I find it hella odd probably betrays an Amerocentrism that expects former heads of national security bureaus to be, a la Clapper, disingenuously self-serving masters of doublespeak. However, it's true that Israel, as a tiny enclave in that volatile place East of the Middle, has far less leeway in their ability to make mistakes than the good ol' U. S. of A. While fair Columbia drones whole villages out of existence in Yemen and Afghanistan without any appreciable blowback (yet), Eretz-Yisrael must conform itself with surgically placed bombs in densely populated Palestinian cities, which then result in mass protests and a predictable increase in suicide attacks. Hardly surprising, given America's giant buffers aptly full of salt water on three sides to Israel's piddling wall.

So it stands to reason that these six men, all extremely intelligent, all former soldiers, some former members of the Knesset, and none of whom are constrained any longer by political correctness or bullshit, can, and do, take a far more intelligent, nuanced, and pragmatic view of the humanitarian disaster currently unfolding in their occupied territories. However, the real kick in the crotch doesn't really come until the very end of the movie. The very last line of the movie, in fact, and this line, if nothing else, is probably the entire reason this film should be seen by all Americans who want to understand the predicament of their future children and grandchildren, of a future that will undoubtedly unfold in America because it has already unfolded in Israel, with devastating consequences.

This line is spoken by Ami Ayalon, head of Shin Bet 1995 to 2000 and runner-up to the post of Prime Minister in 2007. Mr Ayalon begins this particular monologue with a reference to an idea he attributes to Carl Von Clausewitz, a 19th century military theorist, which is that "victory is the creation of a better political reality". The validity of what is "better" can be debated, of course, but as a general dialectical construct, it is a good definition as any other. And so taking this at face value, has Israel been able to achieve victory--that is, has Israel been able to achieve a better political reality? One would have to be heartily aligned with the fundamentalist far right of the Zionist movement to argue that it has. On the whole, life in Israel is now more nasty, more brutish, and shorter than it was at the signing of the Oslo accords. And so, Mr Ayalon concludes, "the tragedy of Israel's public security debate is that we don't realise we face a frustrating situation in which we win every battle but lose the war."

That is the last line of the film, and it is profound. Indeed, it's something every Israeli and every Palestinian is deeply aware of, but thanks to the decisions of their forebears, there can only be escalation; retrenchment is defeat. And in this war, defeat is not an option, for death is preferable.

This is a clear warning to the many administrations of the New World. About three-quarters of the way through The Gatekeepers, the men are asked if they favour talking problems over in lieu of violence. Even Shalom, the most hawkish, agrees that the only way to resolve the conflict, or any conflict, is by talking. And this is exactly what the US seems to not be doing. And if Israel's fate is any indication, I fear for the next generation. Is that the kind of world we want?