Anyone with an interest in historical cloak-and-dagger will appreciate the documentary The Mossad, about Israel’s legendary foreign intelligence service. We meet some current and recent Mossad officers, who are extremely tight-lipped. But decades of intervening history have freed their older colleagues to spin first-hand tales of the Mossad’s most legendary operations:
- The kidnapping of Nazi death camp czar Adolph Eichmann (and we hear from the guy who physically grabbed Eichmann in Buenos Aires).
- The cultivation of a longtime mole at the highest level of the Egyptian government. The mole is identified. We hear how the Israeli military reacted to the advance warning of Egypt’s 1973 invasion – you may be surprised.
- The methodical hunting down of the Palestinian terrorists who kidnapped and murdered Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
The Mossad is a natural bookend to the The Gatekeepers, about another Israeli intelligence agency. The Gatekeepers is centered around interviews with all six surviving former chiefs of Shin Bet, Israel’s super-secret internal security force. We get their inside take on the past thirty years of Israeli-Palestinian history. What is revelatory, however, is their assessment of Israel’s war on terror. These are hard ass guys who went to the office every morning to kill terrorists. But upon reflection, they conclude that winning tactics make for a losing strategy.
The Gatekeepers is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and for streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.
You can find how to watch The Mossad along with the entire SFJFF program at San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.