FRANCE 24 reviews “The Bibi Files”, a new documentary by filmmakers Alexis Bloom and Alex Gibney, which features never-before-seen footage of Israeli police interrogating Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, his family and his inner circle on corruption allegations. The documentary was screened as a work-in-progress at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival on Monday, hours after a Jerusalem court rejected a petition by Netanyahu to block the screening.
Binyamin Netanyahu reaches for a glass of water on the table. He looks relaxed, slouching slightly in his suit and tie, a large map of the Middle East on the wall behind him enhancing the power and prestige of his position as Israeli prime minister.
“Did you ask for it?” questions an unseen police interrogator.
Netanyahu sips the water. “For what?” The prime minister is so nonchalant, he has to be reminded of the topic of discussion during a police investigation.
“A bag,” he’s patiently reminded.
Another sip. “Perhaps. I don’t remember.”
“And if we told you that you did?”
“So I asked, so what?”
The object of Netanyahu’s scorn is an opaque bag that the prime minister is alleged to have requested to conceal a box of Cohiba cigars, priced at around $1,100, that he received from an Israeli billionaire.
It’s one of many cartons of cigars – code-named “green leaves” by Netanyahu’s staff – and champagne bottles – dubbed “pinks” – that the prime minister and his wife, Sara Netanyahu, are alleged to have received from their wealthy Israeli “friends”.
The scene unfolds in a new documentary, “The Bibi Files”, featuring never-before-seen footage of the Israeli police interrogations that led to Netanyahu’s indictment in November 2019 on corruption charges.
The film from Alexis Bloom and Alex Gibney gets its first screenings, as a work-in-progress, on September 9 and 10 at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival.
It was shown at the festival on Monday just hours after a Jerusalem court rejected a petition by Netanyahu to block the screening.
Over the course of two gripping hours, "The Bibi Files" unveils leaked footage of the police questioning Netanyahu and his family, friends and staff, as well as a former Israeli finance minister.
A lineup of experts, including former top Israeli officials, weaves together scenes of human greed and moral compromise into a comprehensible chronicle.
How has a steady drip of expensive cigars, champagne and diamond-encrusted bracelets contributed to the current state of the Middle East? Do the luxury objects, code-named and hidden in bags, have any bearing on Gazans, dying, displaced and desperate after nearly a year of Israeli bombardments? Can they be linked to the anguish of Israeli families still missing loved ones who were abducted during the October 7 Hamas attack and taken to Gaza?
“The Bibi Files” connects the dots, offering up pieces of the puzzle, examining them and fitting them into the Middle East's political jigsaw. The result is an almost Shakespearean tale of the corruption of one man and how it can infect the body politic of a nation at war, once again, against a people with no country.
Thousands of hours of leaked footage
The police interrogations that are the building blocks of “The Bibi Files” narrative were recorded between 2016 and 2018, and have never been released in Israel due to privacy laws.
The footage was leaked to Gibney in early 2023, before the October 7 attack and subsequent Gaza war erupted. When the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker received the tapes, Israel was witnessing mass protests against the Netanyahu administration’s push for reforms to give the government more control of the judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court.
“It was right around the time when Netanyahu was trying to change the role of the judiciary in Israel. That, for me, made me an immediate connection in terms of him trying to elude the consequences of the prosecution against him. So already it was connected to something larger than just a record of the questioning about the trial,” said Gibney, who co-produced the documentary, in an interview a few days before the film festival screening.
Netanyahu’s corruption trial, which is still ongoing, involves three cases, listed as 1,000, 2,000 and 4,000.
Case 1,000 involves bribery and breach of trust over exorbitant gifts to Netanyahu and his wife by Israeli Hollywood billionaire Arnon Milchan and Australian tycoon James Packer in return for alleged political favours.
Case 2,000 involves negotiating in favour of the owner of Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth against a rival newspaper, allegedly in exchange for favourable coverage.
Case 4,000 also involves alleged bribery and breach of trust over a “reciprocal deal” for positive media coverage, this time with the then owner of the popular Walla news site.
The taped interrogations run for “thousands of hours and we haven't seen them all because there's a very elaborate family tree, let's call it, connected to the various cases. And some of the people who were interrogated are minor players,” explained Bloom, who directed the documentary. “But we did watch all the central characters and sadly, we couldn't even include all of those.”
‘Your evidence is utter and complete bullshit’
The characters facing Israeli police interrogators were informed that they were being recorded and that their testimonies could be used in court. They were not aware, of course, that their sessions would be watched, years later, by audiences halfway across the globe.
Over the course of their police interviews, they display hubris or remorse often corresponding to their wealth and power, with some of the lowest ranks of employees revealing a probity under duress that most of their bosses appear to lack.
“I felt it was wrong, but what could I do? They told me to do it. I’m just afraid my parents will find out and be ashamed of me,” sobs the Netanyahu family’s housekeeper and chef, who was privy to the luxury gifts being funnelled to her employers by Israeli Hollywood producer Milchan.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” replies the police officer with his back to the camera.
“Of course, I do,” she breaks down, wiping tears with the sleeve of her T-shirt.
Sara Netanyahu, in contrast, displays a contemptuousness and rage that’s difficult to digest. Interrupting her interrogators, Israel’s first lady at one point screams, “Your evidence is utter and complete bullshit. Bye!”
“I don't think that they think they've done anything wrong. I think that they are really inflamed by their own self-importance. Many people that I spoke to, both on the record and off the record, have said that Netanyahu has got to this state where he's confusing himself with Israel, like, l’état c’est moi,” explained Bloom.
‘The Yair Netanyahu horror show’
Netanyahu maintains the corruption allegations are baseless and an attempt by his rivals to persecute him and his family. A thread running through most of the prime minister’s interrogation sessions is that the investigation is “not about Binyamin Netanyahu”, referring to himself in the third person, but against “Israel” and “democracy”.
His son Yair is convinced that a “leftist, Marxist” media has framed his father to support “hundreds of thousands of illegal Arabs”.
During a March 2019 questioning, which police dubbed “the Yair Netanyahu horror show”, the prime minister’s son calls his interrogators “Stasi” officials and “the Gestapo police” in a terrifying meltdown that featured Netanyahu Junior linking right-wing conspiracies with state security.
The experts in the documentary, however, say Netanyahu’s corruption and his determination to avoid justice have compromised Israel’s security and destroyed hopes for peace in the Middle East.
Throughout the film, Raviv Drucker, a seasoned Israeli investigative journalist and a co-producer of “The Bibi Files” who also appears in the documentary, provides context and continuity with razor-sharp clarity.
Lavish gifts from billionaire friends, for instance, lead to attempts to change tax laws in their favour, Drucker explains, after footage of then Israeli finance minister Yair Lapid is aired. When Hollywood producer Milchan has a problem getting his US visa extended after publicly bragging about his role in an arms procurement deal, Netanyahu is alleged to have personally called then US secretary of state John Kerry to address the situation. Milchan got his US visa renewed.
Meanwhile, the corruption charges against Netanyahu, extensively covered in the Israeli media, are so incendiary that the country’s mainstream political parties refused to form alliances with Netanyahu for the 2022 election.
This forced the ambitious politician into the arms of right-wing extremists such as current Interior Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who were once considered untouchable by mainstream parties. The hardliners, in turn, are committed to extending the war in Gaza and Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, several experts interviewed in the film allege.
“His legal predicament was undermining our security,” notes Drucker.
“We were weak, but not because of the [judicial reform] protests, because of the policies he [Netanyahu] led. And it was clear to me that our resilience was falling apart. It created a huge danger, a security danger, because our enemies understand it – sometimes earlier than we do,” says Ami Ayalon, former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency.
October 7 attack raises the stakes
When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Bloom was in the thick of making “The Bibi Files”, interviewing experts, cajoling members of Netanyahu’s inner circle to speak on the record, and trying to shape a complex story.
The attack caught Bloom, whose father is Jewish and who has often visited Israel, off-guard.
“It raised the stakes. Initially everyone paused around October 7th, and it took a minute to take stock of the situation. Alex [Gibney] and I discussed this back and forth: how do we make this film? You know, there are just certain practicalities of filming people during a time of national mourning,” said Bloom.
“But we found that pretty much straightaway, there was a consistency amongst many Israelis that Netanyahu should not be prime minister. And they said to us he shouldn't be prime minister in times of peace, and particularly not in times of war,” she recounted.
‘The whisper is not heard’
The story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is unfinished business, being written in headlines every day.
Five years after multiple corruption charges were filed against him, Netanyahu is still in power. Massive anti-Netanyahu protests erupt regularly, with demonstrators demanding a Gaza ceasefire and a hostages-for-prisoners exchange deal. Netanyahu’s corruption trial continues. As does the supply of US arms to Israel.
The Gaza war has put US ties with Israel under the spotlight and “The Bibi Files” provides glimpses of how the “special relationship” between the two nations works at different levels.
Some of the most sobering conclusions from top former Israeli officials interviewed in the documentary focus on the responsibility of powerful and even ordinary US citizens.
“The Bibi Files” ends with Netanyahu’s July 24 speech to a joint session of the US Congress, when he became the only leader to surpass Winston Churchill’s record of three Congressional speeches.
“I thought it was the best-articulated bunch of empty slogans. There was no plan for ending the war in Gaza, bringing hostages home and changing dynamics in the region. Tragically, the Americans don’t know how to call him out,” says Nimrod Novik, a former senior adviser to late Israeli president Shimon Peres.
“The fact that 100 members of the House and Senate boycotted his speech was not visible. The fact that the administration is so frustrated is not expressed. They whisper, but the whisper is not heard. You want the Israelis to hear you, speak up,” Novik adds.
‘Truth-to-power film’
“The Bibi Files” is unlikely to get an Israeli screening since the country’s privacy laws stipulate that audiovisual material can only be publicly released after securing the permission of people being filmed during official proceedings.
“It’s unlikely that Netanyahu was going to give his permission,” quipped Gibney with a wry smile. “There’s a legal restriction at the moment in Israel, by agreement with the source. Everywhere else in the world, there's no restriction. So, we plan to distribute it as widely as possible and still stay within the bounds of our promise, or my promise, to the source.”
As the director, Bloom notes that the film is aimed at international, particularly American, audiences. “Honestly, these stories about Netanyahu are fairly well known in Israel,” she said. “So many Israelis along the way have said to me, ‘You need to get this out to the wider world’.”
Getting it out, and getting it out fast, underlined the decision to enter the film as a work-in-progress at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival, which is a major gathering for film distributors.
“There's a real sense of urgency here with this war continuing. It's an old-fashioned truth-to-power film. And he's in power,” said Bloom, referring to Netanyahu. “We felt like it was urgent to get it out in terms of it being a work-in-progress.”
Gibney agrees. “We're dealing with a conflagration in the Middle East where people are dying every day. So to be able to have a platform where you can plant a stake in the ground and also start, you know, serious discussion about Netanyahu and his motives, I think was important,” he said.
“It needs to get out there, and it needs to get out there now.”
