The Baby Files, directed by Alexis Bloom, is an exceptional and essential documentary. This comes in the wake of the corruption scandal that swept over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu like a toxic cloud. What’s more, it’s about how the accusations he’s been trying to shake off since 2019, when he was first indicted on bribery and fraud charges, have changed who he is as a politician.
The film makes a strong case that Netanyahu’s alliance with the far right in Israeli politics, culminating in his hideous compulsion to prolong the carnage in Gaza with no end in sight, was motivated almost entirely by his attempt to evade charges. Against him. As long as the war continues, this becomes his excuse for remaining in office. Underneath it all, the documentary argues, Netanyahu is so terrified of being ousted and imprisoned that he is willing to create a hole in Israeli society to avoid it.
When national leaders are accused of corruption, the charges tend to be serious. Richard Nixon was brought down for a series of crimes. Ronald Reagan oversaw the Iran-Contra scandal (a crime that, in my opinion, was more serious than Watergate). Donald Trump has been accused of crimes ranging from election interference to sexual assault. So, when you hear about the scandal that has consumed Netanyahu, at first glance it may seem shockingly trivial by comparison. He’s accused of bribery and fraud, the crux of the charges related to the gifts he received — a type of sponge that sponged off the “generosity” of wealthy and influential friends, the business tycoons who showered Pepe and his wife, Sarah, with Cohiba cigars and rivers of champagne. And expensive jewelry.
The reason this may seem trivial at first is that national leaders tend to enjoy their privileges. Many US presidents, from JFK onwards, have smoked Cuban cigars, and no one spends much time asking where they got them from.
However, Israel is a different place. Seventy-six years after its founding, Israel remains a spiritually austere nation, rooted in the abstract socialist ethos of the kibbutz. Netanyahu’s tendency to live large is notable, and this tendency has increased during his 17 years as prime minister. For him, it became a matter of entitlement. He and Sarah, who govern very much as a conjoined couple (similar to Bill and Hillary Clinton), travel everywhere and are treated like royalty, especially in the White House. When they return home, they want this lifestyle to continue. According to Israeli journalist Raviv Drucker (one of the film’s producers), Netanyahu has sugar daddies all over the world.
In Israel, accepting such gifts is considered a serious offense. Especially when it looks like favors have been returned — like, for example, the tax law that Netanyahu has been accused of skewing to favor his good friend, the Israeli-born Hollywood producer, Arnon Milchan. Far fewer scandals have brought down the careers of Israeli politicians. But as the Bibi Files show, Netanyahu, who has become the longest-serving prime minister since Israel’s founding, has developed a messianic streak. In his mind, it is becomes The state (not only its representative but its embodiment). He believes he is invincible, and that he gets what he deserves.
The Bibi Files includes interviews with many important voices in Israel (politicians, journalists, and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert), but the heart of the film is a series of digitally recorded interrogations — of Netanyahu and his associates — that were leaked. A secret for the filmmakers. We see Bibi sitting in his rather simple office, with an Israeli flag on one side of his desk and a document shredder on the other, while police interrogators ask him to confirm or deny details of the crimes he is accused of committing. This is interesting, mostly because of Netanyahu’s impressive performance.
His character during interrogation is one of calculated self-righteousness. His strategy is to deny, deny, deny and not remember anything. There’s a montage of him saying, “I don’t remember,” which, according to the movie, is his answer to 95 percent of the questions. But it’s not just denial. Netanyahu’s tactic, and it is a formidable one, is to highlight police interviewers by attacking them in an overly self-justifying tone. “this Preposterous!He huffed. “You.” Phantom!Recordings are played of witnesses detailing his transgressions, and the illegal deals he made (such as when he facilitated $250 million in bank loans for Israeli cell phone tycoon Shaul Elovitch and, in return, gained editorial control of the popular political newspaper Al-Shabab). Walla website). He greets each one of them by shouting: “Lies! All lies!” He almost convinces you that he believes it. He would sit there angry, then slam his hand on the table, declaring his mockery of the police, the injustice he suffered, and his cry of aggrieved innocence. It’s all theater. But Netanyahu is a great actor, like Trump or perhaps Al Pacino. He is mesmerizing in his impudence.
In a precedent, he should have resigned in 2019, when he was first indicted; His lawyer advised him to do so and to announce the end of his political career. But Bibi rebelled. According to former Prime Minister Olmert, “He was challenging the regime. He said: No, I am above, I am above. What happened next was that the center-left parties in the Knesset decided to ban it, which made Netanyahu – due to his desperate need to survive – gravitate to the far right, and ally himself with figures like him. Bezalel Smotrich, an active supporter of terrorism against Palestinians, and Itamar Ben Gavit, who openly celebrated the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. By joining forces with pranksters like these, with whom he refused even to be photographed a few years ago, Netanyahu formed the most far-right government in the history of Israeli politics.
It was all to save his skin.
When Netanyahu vows to continue the war in Gaza until all remnants of Hamas are uprooted and destroyed, and even his pro-Israel critics say things like: “This makes no sense. It is impossible to completely destroy Hamas,” the film strongly suggests that Netanyahu, even When he triples his “hard-line” stance, he is essentially lying that he knows that Hamas cannot be completely destroyed. He just wants an excuse to continue everything, and somehow only his accusations of corruption can The explanation for the madness of this endless war of revenge, and the way it has destroyed Israel’s credibility around the world, depends on how much of an impact you think the war in Gaza had on the US presidential election (there is no doubt that it lost Kamala Harris votes from Arab Americans and from… Young voters across the country), you could even draw a skewed line from Pepe’s penchant for Cohiba cigars to elect Trump.
Alexis Bloom, who directed Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg and Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes, is a brilliant filmmaker who knows how to investigate the spread of power. It goes back and charts Netanyahu’s childhood and life story – his older brother who led and died in the “Raid on Entebbe” (he was like Joseph Kennedy Jr., and Bibi began his career on the back of his father). Brother’s Championship), and what turned out to be Netanyahu’s astonishing skill as an Israeli speaker. I was watching him interview on “Nightline” and marveled at his quick television eloquence.
It was only a matter of time before Bibi became prime minister, but as his anti-terrorism stance hardened, he began to tear down the pillars of Israeli democracy. By the time he tried to neutralize the Supreme Court two years ago, he had thrown the entire country into chaos. There were massive protests. His motivation was, by this point, openly authoritarian, and the documentary makes the crucial point that his iron grip of panic left Israel vulnerable, which is part of how the October 7 massacre occurred. The country’s guard was out of action.
Netanyahu is not the first ruler is used War to maintain his power. The film suggests that he would likely end up in prison anyway. (He has now been charged with falsifying phone records.) The Bibi Files is an important documentary because it takes in the big picture of how Benjamin Netanyahu became so entrenched that he reshaped Israel in his image, in much the same way. This is what Trump did in the United States, and he will now try to do more. These leaders don’t care who or what they fall with. In Bibi’s case, the collateral damage began to include not only the victims of the war in Gaza, but Israel itself.