Since the Six-Day War in 1967 and the occupation of Palestine the Shin Bet, Israel's secret service, has been the only group present for each of the country's crucial policy making decisions. The Gatekeepers presents six former heads of the intelligence agency, who through candid interviews detailing specifics of their actions and voicing their few triumphs and several regrets, takes us through several phases in the interminable Israeli/Palestinian conflict including the Bus 300 affair, the Oslo peace accords, and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. I read that filmmaker Dror Moreh was inspired to make this documentary after viewing Errol Morris' extraordinary The Fog of War which interviews former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara where he expresses lamentations over some of the U.S.'s Vietnam War strategies. Through similar frankness and starkness of the footage, this film also carries the same haunting and enthralling capacities. I did, however, feel that Moreh nudged too hard in some of the interviews, which also tend to grow redundant especially when the subjects begin to speak on the future of their country's policies.
