A talking-heads documentary history of Israel told by its former internal-security chiefs might be expected to be both dry and predictable but The Gatekeepers is neither.
The interviewees - the six men who ran Shin Bet, Israel's internal-security intelligence operation, for all but two of the years from 1980 to 2011 - upend all expectations that such men, fierce patriots all, would be repressive and doctrinaire chauvinists as well. Instead, they give remarkably nuanced and pragmatic views.
The timing of the film's release in Israel was telling. In 2011 and 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made several sabre-rattling speeches foreshadowing a pre-emptive attack on Iran, which he compared to Nazi Germany.
Yuval Diskin, interviewed here, was among many outspoken dissenters.
Meanwhile, all conclude with greater or lesser fervour that the military occupation of the West Bank is illegal and immoral, not to mention counterproductive, since it makes Israel less, not more, secure.
