Lies, luxury, and endless war

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, is either an upstanding man of certain moral turpitude with a renowned attention to detail whose only interest is defending his nation or an accomplished liar with a selective memory of demanding «gifts» from wealthy friends that routinely run to expensive champagne, cigars and tacky diamond jewellery for his wife Sara, but also extends to arranging positive press coverage from friends who owe him favours.

The path to power

Alexis Bloom’s The Bibi Files – nearly two hours of enthralling documentary footage that world premiered at #Doc NYC# and just released (Friday, 13 Dec) in cinemas in the UK and Ireland and across streaming platforms – does little to persuade its viewers of the latter. For Bloom and his triple Emmy award-winning producer Alex Gibney, Bibi – Netanyahu’s nickname used by supporters – is a liar, guilty of cheap and vulgar crimes of using friends to live beyond the means of he and his aggressive (and strongly hinted at in this documentary, heavy drinking) wife.

Drawing on previously unpublished videotapes of leaked Israeli police interviews with Netanyahu, his wife, friends and associates since the launch of #corruption proceedings against him five years ago, The Bibi Files traces Netanyahu’s path to power as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister totalling 17 years over various terms. It argues that Netanyahu’s personal fear of being found guilty and ending up in jail – as other Israeli politicians convicted of corruption have in the past – has driven him to ally himself with far-right partners in government, and drawn him into devastating wars against #Hamas and, in #Lebanon, against Iranian backed-Hezbollah.

The police videos show a man who claims to remember virtually nothing – at one point, an investigator cries out in exasperation that «90 percent of the time you answer that you don’t remember!» – while at the same time damning other witnesses the police refer to as «liars.»

Netanyahu is mostly calm under police questioning, whereas his wife, Sara – whom Bloom says Bibi is afraid of – is aggressive and confrontational, as is the couple’s eldest son Yair, who dubs the police «Gestapo» and «Stasi» operatives. If anyone else drew comparisons between the Israeli police and Nazi Germany’s vicious secret police in public, they’d probably be condemned as anti-Semitic.

If anyone else drew comparisons between the Israeli police and Nazi Germany’s vicious secret police in public, they’d probably be condemned as anti-Semitic.

Security dangers

The Bibi Files draws on interviews with Netanyahu’s oldest friend, #Uzi Beller# (and now a leading critic), former political advisors, top investigative reporter #Raviv Drucker# (who is also one of the film’s producers), housekeepers, a former assistant to US-based former arms trader turned film producer, #Arnon Milchin# – a close friend to the prime minister and others. Bloom is aware that some may dub the film anti-Semitic, and producers say they have yet to sell the film in the US, where the slightest criticism of Israel is now routinely conflated with anti-Semitism.

«The film is clearly not anti-Semitic or anti-Israel,» the director says. «All of the people interviewed in the film are Israeli, and apart from one, they’re all Jewish. They are all critical of Netanyahu – and if you believe the polls, so is seventy percent of the Israeli public.”

Pointing out the dangers that Netanyahu poses to the security of ordinary Israelis is not anti-Semitic, he insists. «Netanyahu has been terrible for the security of Israel and the security of the region. You have to be able to criticise Netanyahu without it being portrayed as anti-Semitic. He’s not #Judaism. He is not Israel.»

Bloom broadens out a story of classic political corruption, where a greedy and brazen couple who enjoy the good life, seek to enjoy the baubles they see their wealthy friends and associates having. Bibi’s story is not just one of corruption but of a man whose ego had grown to the point that he sees himself as some King David figure, leading the Jewish people to salvation. But the pressure of corruption charges has, he argues, pushed Netanyahu further right to form a coalition with a couple of extremists – #Itamar Ben Gvir# a settler who craves the Palestinian territories in their entirety, who is now Minister of National Security, and #Bezalel Smotrich# (Finance Minister), who is seen in the film telling members of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, «there is no such thing as the Palestinian people.»

The Hamas attack on Israeli settlements on 7 Oct 2023, which sparked the current Israeli war on them and which has caused the deaths of more than 46,000 Palestinians (and more than 1,500 Israelis, including those killed on 7 Oct), had contributed to massive destabilisation in the #Middle East#. Of the hostages taken by Hamas on 7 Oct – and the rescue of which was given as the reason for Israel launching its devastating attacks on #Gaza and other Palestinian areas – seem to have been forgotten. 101 are still in captivity, of which 35 have been declared dead. Families of the hostages who have campaigned for more efforts to rescue their loved ones have found little support from the likes of Smotrich, and Sara Netanyahu’s support seems to have been transactional – demanding recognition for her helping them, Bloom’s film shows.

Endless war

The «endless war» that Netanyahu has launched seems designed to keep him out of jail, but repeated demands to postpone his trial – and attempts to exert political control over Israel’s judiciary – have come to nought. On 10 Dec, Netanyahu became the first prime minister to stand trial for corruption: charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, he is due to testify three times a week – despite the Gaza war and ongoing turmoil in the Middle East, including in neighbouring #Syria where the Israeli air force took advantage of the toppling of Bashar Al-Asaad to destroy the country’s military and war materiel in nearly 500 bombing strikes.

For Netanyahu, it will, from what The Bibi Files shows us, be another opportunity to deny everything and dub everyone else liars.