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Dec. 13, 2013
The biggest threat is internal
Former Shin Bet head warns of Israel’s far-right fundamentalists.
PAT JOHNSON
A former head of Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, warns that Israel faces existential threats – but the greatest threat is not from Iran or hostile neighbors, but from right-wing Israeli religious fundamentalists.
Carmi Gillon, who served in the powerful post of Shin Bet director in 1995 and 1996, spoke after a screening of the film The Gatekeepers on Nov. 25. He was joined by the film’s director, Dror Moreh, in the event, which was part of the Cherie Smith JCCGV Jewish Book Festival.
Israel faces existential threats from Iran’s nuclear program and the ongoing conflict with inhospitable neighbors (“rockets here, rockets there”), Gillon said, but the greatest threat to Israel is an internal one.
While the vast majority of both Israelis and Palestinians are “pragmatic,” Gillon said, the greatest danger to Israeli security is from extreme-right Israelis. Of a potential agreement that would see Israel withdraw from most of the West Bank settlements, Gillon warned, “there are a lot of people there who won’t do that” and he suggested they may well take up arms against their own country when pressed to evacuate.
The threats presented by Jewish religious fundamentalists present a binary choice for Israeli society, he suggested. “Are we going to listen to the voice of wisdom, or are we going to listen to the voice of God?” he asked.
Moreh, the film’s director, said that secular Israelis “sit on our ass[es] and eat sushi.” Half a million protested the price of cottage cheese, he said, but those same people are not addressing the core internal and external issues that truly threaten the cohesion and security of the country.
Moreh’s film interviews the six living former heads of Shin Bet. (For a review of the film, see, “The edge of the abyss,” Jewish Independent, March 1, 2013.) Adding archival footage and computer animation, the film addresses many of the controversial aspects of Israel’s policy toward protesters, terrorists and Palestinian civilians since the 1967 war began the occupation of the West Bank and, until 2005, the Gaza Strip. The film also goes into detail on security failures like the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, which occurred when Gillon was head of Shin Bet, and the threat from Jewish religious extremists.
In interviews, the former heads discussed the morality of weighing collateral damage when targeting terrorists for assassinated killings and the use of torture as a security tool. The film addresses difficult issues and some of the defence and interrogation policies that have put Israel in the crosshairs of global human rights organizations.
Moreh said his film is intended to provide the Israeli public “a mirror that they cannot ignore.” It was nominated for best documentary at the 2013 Academy Awards.
Gillon spoke of Rabin as a leader who was prepared to take significant political risks for the goal of ending the occupation and moving toward normalization of Israel and Palestine as two states. He credited Ariel Sharon similarly, noting, “It’s not a matter of right or left.”
“Yitzhak Rabin’s vision was to make Israel a better place for Israelis,” Gillon said, noting that Rabin viewed the cost of the occupation as too high. Six prime ministers since Rabin, said Gillon, have all agreed that a two-state resolution is the only feasible, ultimate conclusion to the issue. Like Rabin, Gillon said, they have come to this conclusion not because it is best for the Palestinians, but because it is best for Israelis.
“We have no alternative,” he said. “Unfortunately, both sides don’t have the leaders to move on with the process.”
Of the just-signed agreement between Iran and Western powers intended to halt progress on Iran’s nuclear program, Gillon acknowledged that he is “a little bit afraid of it.” He hopes the Americans will ensure Iran fulfils its obligations under the accord. But, he added, the United States “was, is, and hopefully will be the best friend of Israel.”
Gillon evoked laughs from the audience numerous times, including responding to moderator Noemi Gal-Or’s question about whether the absence of the word “Zionism” from the film represented something politically significant.
“We take Zionism for granted. This is an Israeli film,” Gillon said. “I can assure you that all six of us are high-level Zionists.”
Moreh said it was difficult to get the six former heads of the secretive agency to agree to participate. Gillon can’t say why he agreed to be interviewed. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it was one of the mistakes I made.”
The first time the six saw the film – in fact, the first time all six had met face to face – was at the première screening. Gillon said all six were surprised to find they came to the same conclusion, primarily that engaging in good faith with the Palestinians is the only reasonable course toward peace and an end of the occupation.
While Moreh said the interviewees – some of whom sat for seven or eight hours – gave him “dynamite,” Gillon clarified that there were no state secrets revealed in the film.
“There were no secrets there,” Gillon said. “It was more philosophy.” The most startling thing revealed in the film, he said, is that all six former security agency heads concluded that resolving the conflict by ending the occupation is the only way forward. That consensus had already demonstrated its power years earlier, when four former Shin Bet directors were interviewed by Yediot Ahronot, expressing the unanimous conclusion that then prime minister Sharon should engage with the Palestinian leadership or risk continuing danger to Israel’s security. These words, according to Moreh, had a powerful impact on Sharon, who respected the advice of these men who were at the centre of Israel’s defence establishment.
Repeating what other Shin Bet directors said in the film, Gillon said talk is the only answer. “In my eyes,” he said, “we need to negotiate with anybody, including Iran, including Hamas, including Hezbollah.”
Moreh said he was inspired to make the film by Errol Morris’ documentary The Fog of War, about Robert McNamara, who was the U.S. secretary of defence from 1960 to 1968, a period including the Cuban Missile Crisis and when U.S. involvement in Vietnam dramatically increased. The powerful film won the 2003 Academy Award for best documentary. For Moreh, it is an example of giving people who were at the centre of major news events the opportunity to express the lessons of their experience from the remove of decades.
When he saw the impact that the Yediot story had on public policy, Moreh decided that interviewing the six living former heads of Shin Bet could shed light on issues that Israelis need to confront. “There is no one who understands that conflict more than them,” he said.
After leaving Shin Bet, Gillon served as director-general of the Peres Centre for Peace and, later, as ambassador to Denmark. He is now mayor of Mevasseret Zion and vice-president of external relations for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Other former Shin Bet directors have also entered elective politics after their service, in parties across the spectrum. However, as one of the former directors said with a smile in The Gatekeepers, it seems one retires from the Shin Bet leadership position and becomes “a bit of a leftist.”
Pat Johnson is a Vancouver writer and principal in PRsuasiveMedia.com.
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