The Bibi Files Premieres AT TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) - Part I

Is the Embattled PM Corrupt or is he Persecuted?

Editor’s Note:

I am spending time in Toronto and other spots in Canada and the U.S. for my long, annual summer/early fall “time-out” from living in Israel. On Tuesday morning I awoke to more than a few messages from friends in Israel asking: “Anything new? Did you see it?”

I had no clue what they were talking about.

Alas. The mystery was solved quickly. This is the season – TIFF season – when Toronto is overtaken by the glitterati and celebrity classes. In recent decades, TIFF has become a big deal on the international film festival circuit. Truth is, I was a hardcore patron in its early years in the 80s and early 90s, when it was a lot rougher around the edges. Scrappy, independent cinemas around the city participated. You could show up a few minutes before the start time and score tickets.The whole red-carpet scene really wasn’t a thing. It was reasonably priced, accessible and more appealing. To me.

As it has turned into the glam event it is today I’ve tuned it out. TIFF events make the already unbearable downtown traffic worse. And the lineups to get in….even if you have tickets. So long. So I just don’t go.

Unbeknownst to me (until Tuesday morning), last Monday night TIFF premiered a documentary called “The Bibi Files”, which attracted a lot of attention globally. The film takes a hard look at the facts and circumstances behind the various corruption charges that PM Netanyahu faces in Israel. But the director zooms out. This isn’t just about the allegations against Bibi and the glacial pace of his trial. Five years in the system, to date, and it has barely started. The film shines a spotlight on the degree to which the discord caused by the PM’s conduct correlates to the protest movement. What is the connection?

Since January, 2023, when the newly formed governing coalition was announced- which most consider to be extremely extreme - Israeli society has been roiling. Civil society protests have been constant and intensifying, eroding social cohesion. Many Israelis believe that this widespread dysfunction and chaos created the conditions for the October 7 horror. Yahya Sinwar certainly did.

Does The Bibi Files present a biased rendering? You bet. But every documentary does. It is an interpretation of history in the moment. One of the producers, Israeli journalist Raviv Drucker, makes no effort to conceal or minimize his opinion of the subject, Benjamin Netanyahu. He believes strongly that the man is corrupt and will, if necessary, destroy the state to redeem what he sees as his good name and rightful legacy. At one point in the film, Drucker states that in order to protect himself, legally, Netanyahu has taken the nation hostage.

In addition to on camera interviews with a number of high-profile individuals who share their negative views of Netanyahu quite freely, the real blockbuster of this film is the video tapes of police interrogations that were leaked.

Who do we see being questioned in the cop shops? Bibi. His wife Sara. Their son Yair. Israeli business tycoon, Shaul Elovitch (a former friend/acquaintance/useful ally of Netanyahu’s who got messed up in this scandal). Casino billionaires, the late Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miri. Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan. And others. The police interrogation tapes reveal a lot.

That’s what all the buzz is about.

There were only two screenings of the film. The premiere was last Monday night and protesters made lots of noise outside the theatre complex as well as inside the cinema before it started showing.

I attended on Tuesday evening and all was quiet. Getting a ticket was not easy but I was determined. The theatre was packed but not a peep of protest. There were, however, more than a few attendees wearing hostage Ts and sweatshirts, dog tags and yellow pins. I was pleasantly surprised. Now. To “The Bibi Files”.

The Bibi Files?

In the opening scene of The Bibi Files, the star is seated in a chair that he amply fills out, wedged between a wall and a small table. Everything is cramped. Bibi sits three feet from  the police officers questioning him. He has a bottle of San Pellegrino by his side in every scene. (It might have been Perrier in the opening.) The police officers drink regular water.

Last Monday night, the controversial film The Bibi Files, premiered at TIFF. Which is a big deal. The day before the screening the Prime Minister had applied to the Jerusalem District Court for an injunction to prevent the film from being shown. It’s difficult to understand the thought process behind the 11^th hour courtroom drama. Even if Netanyahu had been successful, the injunction would then have to be heard and upheld in a court in Ontario, Canada. And that would not happen overnight, literally or metaphorically. So – all the effort was moot and did nothing but draw more attention to the film. It is doubtful that this was a desired outcome for Bibi. As the director commented when introducing the movie to the TIFF audience at the Tuesday night screening, which I attended: “We couldn’t buy publicity like that.”

Indeed. The court move led to coverage in the Israeli news media. Which, in turn, raised the profile of the premiere globally. It sure hadn’t been on my radar. And then, I woke up on Tuesday morning to more than a few messages from friends in Israel: “Did you see it?”

How could I not?

So, I scored a last-minute VIP ticket for the Tuesday showing. And that was no easy feat.

It is unclear to me if and where the film will be shown going forward. It is being promoted as a “film-in-progress”, suggesting that it’s a draft. The version I saw on Tuesday night offers an unsparing look at the allegations of financial and moral corruption brought against Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a man with an extraordinary life, career and intellect.

No new facts were exposed in this movie. There was no big bombshell. It was more about the culture of Netanyahu’s leadership. And the way in which one man, blessed with brilliance and charisma, has mutated into a person who some see as a messiah-type figure, while others view him as having become pure evil. There is very little, if any, grey area when it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu.

The film features footage from police interviews with Bibi, his wife Sara, son Yair and a string of very wealthy and powerful people who have been close to the Prime Minister in the past. Also featured are those who served the powerful few, from household help to personal assistants. A few professional and communications advisers. A former prime minister. Head of Shin Bet.

Those who had personal relationships with Netanyahu claimed to have been inadvertently drawn into the vortex that many – including the Israeli police – view as being corrupt. To Bibi and his family, there is nothing untoward or unusual about how they conduct themselves as public figures. Receiving lavish gifts, on demand, from “close friends” is unremarkable. To them. As he and his wife and son have stated frequently, all this nitpicking is just a wicked leftist plot to bring him down.

The Netanyahu family is deeply committed to this narrative of persecution.

Fundamentally, the various allegations center around a chronic habit of the Netanyahus to “request” very expensive gifts from “close friends.” Bibi has a yen for pricey cigars. His wife, Sara, likes expensive champagne and blingy jewelry.

These facts have been aired publicly and are rehashed in the tapes. The Netanyahus insist that any gifts given were tokens of friendship and gratitude from long-time close friends. They insist that they never demanded nor asked for specific items.

Israeli journalist, Raviv Drucker, who is also one of the film’s producers, says that these goodies totaled at least $250,000 over several years and that there were favors granted by the prime minister in return. Valuable favors. Netanyahu flatly denies the insinuation. He also claims not to remember if and what he received from anyone.  

Among the interview subjects and the chattering classes in Israel, there is a consensus that Bibi changed after the 2015 election. Up until a day or two before the election that year Bibi was expected to be defeated roundly. In the end, he confounded the polls and pundits and was triumphant. His win, as he said that night, was the “equivalent of a landslide” in Israel’s notoriously fractious parliament.

I was serving at the time as the Canadian Ambassador to Israel and made a point of popping into the convention hall rooms of each of the main parties on election night. I arrived very late at the Likud event held at the Tel Aviv Expo Center. Bibi showed up with Sara long after midnight to a throng of electrified Likudniks. They were ecstatic, as was their hero, King Bibi.

King Bibi.

Following this election that he changed.

He became imperious. Haughty. And he may also have begun to think of himself as being untouchable.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is Charged with Corruption

By 2016 there was lots of talk of serious corruption. The police investigation into the Prime Minister’s conduct began in December, 2016. On November 21, 2019, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit – who had been appointed by Bibi – announced that the state would be bringing criminal charges of corruption against the Prime Minister. In a very brief statement to the media, Mandelblit said that this moment was difficult and sad for the nation and for him personally.

Everything about this case has been tortuous. From the time that news of the investigation was made public until charges were laid took years. Since charges were laid, the judicial the process has been staggeringly slow. Of course, the trial of a sitting prime minister on criminal charges is unprecedented. As Drucker notes, in all previous cases involving criminal charges of those in high office the individual resigned. Not Bibi. He would not be defeated by what he and his family repeatedly decried as a witch hunt by the leftist media and legal system to end his career.

There is no question that most of those interviewed in this film by the police or the filmmakers are anti-Bibi. But they were not always. It is also clear that the uber wealthy are disgusted by it all. This sordid affair is beneath them. But not one of them leaps to the defense of Netanyahu. Not publicly nor in the leaked tapes.

Perhaps the most interesting witness shown in the film is Hadas Klein, a former assistant to Hollywood mogul, Arnon Milchan. Klein knew everything. She was a silent participant in every phone call involving Milchan. When asked by the police whether she or her boss had ever refused a request from the Netanyahus for gifts, she grimaced and flicked her hand dismissively, as if the possibility was absurd. “No such thing.״

Meaning. There’s not a chance that anyone would say NO to the Netanyahus.

Klein confirmed that Milchan had received repeated requests from the Netanyahus – often from Bibi himself – for certain items to be delivered to a particular address in a specific way. Like – in opaque bags.

Netanyahu, contrastingly, remembered nothing. No specifics. And anyways, he offered. If his good friends thought to send him nice gifts, so what? He reminded the police, as he does the public, that he works 24/7. Always putting the interest of the nation ahead of his personal needs and concerns. And in return? He is constantly under attack. Perhaps, Bibi suggested, that his old friend Milchan felt badly. Perhaps Milchan thought, “I want to sweeten his (Bibi’s) life a little. Help the country.”

And if Milchan did, in fact, send over Cohibe cigars and cases of the finest champagne, well, that was probably why.

What The Bibi Files Revealed

There were two things revealed in the film that did surprise me. One was the aggressive and hostile manner in which Sara and Yair Netanyahu comported themselves with the police detectives who questioned them. They were smug. Disrespectful. No deference. No sense of appropriateness. Even if they are being persecuted baselessly, it astonished me that they would adopt such combative postures. As they have done often in past years, they declared stridently how they had sacrificed their personal happiness for the good of the country. And yet the nation is vituperative in return. Slandering and demeaning them; determined to dethrone and destroy them. Yair refers to the Netanyahus as “the First Family,” somewhat grandiose in the context of Israeli society and politics. The police, he says, are like the Stasi, Communist East Germany’s verson of the KGB. Everything is unjust in this deep state persecution of the saintly Netanyahu family.

This, really, is the thesis of the film: that Benjamin Netanyahu cannot and never will concede power. Because the moment he does so the jackals will clean his carcass. And to fight them off he will do anything. Anything. To continue to rule. Even – as the film suggests – even lead his country to ruin.

A second aspect of the film that surprised me was who was prepared to go on camera and speak about their former boss, friend, colleague. It is public knowledge that the billionaire couple – the late Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miri – were questioned by the police in Israel in connection with them having given the Netanyahus lavish gifts over a period of years. But actually seeing them in grainy footage, in cheap cop shop chairs, was eye popping. They become, well, normal people. In public they are cosseted and surrounded by people fussing and fretting over them. Here, they were regular folks whose discomfort at finding themselves in this uncomfortable spot was clear.

It is safe to assume that every witness was aware they were being recorded. They all have excellent counsel and are savvy businesspeople. To a person, they were embarrassed to have been dragged into this sordid corruption scandal and made clear attempts to distance themselves from the stench of it all.

Professor Uzi Beller, Bibi’s Childhood Friend

Professor Uzi Beller

Professor Uzi Beller has known Bibi from childhood. When he is interviewed in the film, he shows a photograph of the two of them sitting on the steps outside the Netanyahu family home. Pre-teen boys. Beller is a nerdy, bespectacled, small kid who grew up to be the head of Gynecology at Jerusalem’s Shaare Tzedek Hospital. Beside him sits Bibi. He is already built, dwarfing Beller.

Bibi and Beller were pals. Beller recalls that Bibi never had many close friends. They were an unlikely pair who bonded and remained close until Netanyahu pushed the controversial judicial reform legislation on the country, beginning after the October, 2022 election.

As do so many Israelis, Beller fears the impact of the judicial reforms on Israeli democracy. He says during his interview that no democracy in the world would support the judicial reform legislation Bibi has tried to force upon Israel. He also said that he worries about the future of the country. And he said that he implored Bibi, directly, to stop.

Just stop.

On this point – concern regarding the future – I will digress. Having spent a fair bit of time in Canada and the U.S. in the last while I am struck by a profound disconnect. Israelis understand that they are in the throes of an existential battle. Not just with Iran and its proxies. But a battle within, between factions of society, that is challenging national cohesion unlike any time in the past.

People are losing hope. They have lost faith and trust. In their own state. Leaders. Institutions.

Israelis always rely heavily upon one another. But that has intensified in recent years. Civil society has been strengthened, considerably. But civilians do not lead the country. And the elected officials who purport to do so seem to have led us over a precipice.

In addition to the well-understood horrors of the hostages and war, there is a day-to-day reality that receives little attention. The Israeli economy is in tatters. Many people have lost their jobs and income since October 7. Capital flowing into Israel has almost stopped, completely. People are depleted from 11 months of war. Men being called up or yet another stint of reserve duty are exhausted. Their wives and children are falling apart. Their businesses are failing and closing because there is no one to work. Everyone knows people who have been badly injured, died, have a loved one who was or remains a hostage. And, as October 7th nears, it is incomprehensible that we remain mired in this nightmare.

And Bibi? He’s telling us to rev up for war in the North. The West Bank is imploding. Car bombs are going off in Israel daily. And families are leaving. Every day I hear of someone else who is pulling up stakes. My daughter – who works with a major cultural institution – told me that three people from her relatively small group of colleagues are moving to Europe next week. “For a break.” These are talented, young people.

When a man like Professor Uzi Beller says that he is worried about the future in Israel for his children and grandchildren then we have clearly reached a crisis point. Beller is just one of many. The true existential crisis that Israel faces is retaining its best people. And its soul.

Beller is unequivocal when he speaks of Netanyahu’s judicial reform plans. “Bibi understands the importance of the Supreme Court. He made a mistake. I decided then to come out against him [publicly].”

The stakes for Beller, and millions of others, were just too high to remain silent.

It is difficult for some to understand why so many Israelis found the judicial reform legislation to be deeply threatening to the liberal democratic nature of the state. Very simply put, it is because the measures were so dramatic and would have such far-reaching consequences that many feared that implementation of Bibi’s judicial reform heralded a form of autocracy-lite. State of Tel Aviv wrote about this issue here and here. (These are just a sample of the extensive coverage we offered in podcast form and written articles. I invite you to peruse the archives, which are rich with content that remains as relevant today as it was a year or two ago. Access to archives is available to paying subscribers only.)

This was not and is not a fight between right and left (as it is often misrepresented). Nothing of the sort. This was and remains a conflict between a principled, liberal democratic vision of a state and one that promotes a form of autocracy, investing full authority in the legislature with no checks or balances from either a higher chamber of sober reflection (like a senate) or meaningful oversight from a Supreme Court (which would be utterly eviscerated under this reform plan). Bibi’s reforms would bring in a system in which the legislative coalition would have the first, middle and final say, otherwise known as the tyranny of the majority. Exhibit A: Hungary. There are many more examples, present and past.

In the film, Beller also says that his old friend has always been an inveterate liar. “He lies left and right. Bibi lies left and right and doesn’t feel any problem with that.”

This assessment of Netanyahu’s character was discussed further by Beller as well as others interviewed for the film.Their comments portray a man with a fluid sense of morality who had no issue with fudging truths if he was able to contend that his “position” supported the national interest.

Everything he does, Bibi claims, puts the nation above his self interest. He has publicly – and did so vigorously during the interrogation scenes in the film – presented himself as a selfless man with little joy in life due to his slavish devotion to the state.

The long-suffering martyr persona is embraced fully by his wife, Sara and son, Yair.

In Part II of this piece, dropping tomorrow, we focus on the family mythology and how it collides with reality. In the last ten days or so, the Netanyahus have become the story in all the wrong places. Like when they argued with the bereaved parents of one of the six hostages murdered recently by Hamas. What they said. How they behaved. Aligns seamlessly with what we see in the police tapes in The Bibi Files. Until tomorrow….