And the best evidence yet comes from a new documentary film called The Gatekeepers, which features interviews with the six former heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency, all of whom speak out on the public record against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. Interviews with the director of the film, Dror Moreh, can be found on both Democracy Now and CNN. From these interviews one can clearly see that neither Moreh, nor the Israeli security chiefs featured in the film, approach this subject from a leftist or ideological perspective. Moreh correctly describes his interviewees as “pragmatists” who are simply worried about where Israel is heading. The brilliance of this film is that not only does it feature important voices speaking out against the occupation, but it cannot possibly be dismissed with the usual charges of “anti-semitism,” for the people speaking out in the film represent the core of the Israeli security establishment. And despite the taboo around criticizing Israeli policy in the US, this Israeli film has been nominated for an Academy Award.
Further evidence of Israel’s failure in the propaganda wars can be found in a recent cartoon printed in the Sunday Times that depicts Netanyahu building a wall with the bodies of Palestinians. As can be seen in this article in the Times of Israel, Israeli politicians, diplomats, and lobbyists are reacting not with self-reflection, but with outrage and are demanding an apology from the newspaper. Not surprisingly, the accusations of anti-Semitism are once again being hurled about.
When one can find this sort of material in the Academy Awards and the Sunday Times, there is reason to believe that the winds are shifting in the Israeli propaganda battle. And perhaps this is why Israel didn’t even bother to show up for a UN Human Rights Council review of the conditions in Israel and the Occupied Territories. In doing so Israel became the first country to fail to cooperate with the UN Council, a move which will only further galvanize world public opinion against that state of Israel.
