The Gatekeepers Page #2

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ever been inside a prison,

but the one in Jerusalem

is the worst that I know.

It's a very old building

from the time of the Turks.

A normal person

walks through the door

and he's ready to

admit to killing Jesus.

PERY. You need to make

the suspect feel tense.

You need to make

him understand

that when we are done, he

will give up his information,

so the sooner the better.

The Shin Bet has interrogated

tens of thousands of people,

if not hundreds of thousands.

The Shin Bet is

a well-oiled system.

It's well-organized and effective.

It's systematic.

You receive

a territorial unit

and learn it, village by

village, trail by trail,

whether by field trips

or lots of interviews with the

masses of people who come

to military government HQ.

You sit with them and ask

them to tell you about

the village, the clans,

from the number of

people in the village

to what institutions it has...

You eventually reach a point

where you mark who

you want to recruit.

In the end you know

you want X

because X's connections,

his ability to infiltrate places

that you want to watch over

are such that he's the agent

you want to recruit.

Recruiting people means

taking someone who

doesn't usually like you

and making him do things

he never believed he could.

To convince

someone to betray

his surroundings, his

friends, sometimes his family

is no small thing.

SHALOM". All in all, we gained

control over the war on terror.

We kept it on a low flame so the

country could do what it wanted.

That's important,

but it didn't solve the

problem of the Occupation.

What it did was

instead of 20 attacks a week,

there were 20 a year.

All in all,

no Israeli prime minister

took the Palestinians

into consideration,

whether they lived within

the '67 borders or not.

What's the difference between

Golda Meir and Begin? Nothing.

He didn't visit the Arabs.

She didn't either.

She called herself

a Palestinian.

Begin didn't even say that because

they weren't important to him.

In Peres's day,

the atmosphere changed,

but he did the same things

as his predecessors.

Continuing the Occupation?

Yes!

Peri kept showing

us this chart.

How many people were caught?

How many informers were there?

How many attacks were prevented?

How many weren't?

The picture was always rosy,

but it was point-specific. There

was no strategy, just tactics.

1982. The Lebanon War.

The IDF entered Lebanon.

The Shin Bet

recruited operatives.

In no time, the Shin Bet

controlled Lebanon,

just like it controlled

the West Bank.

Avraham Shalom was

head of the Shin Bet.

After years as the most

prominent intelligence agency,

the Mossad was replaced

by the Shin Bet.

I think that he was

to Prime Minister Yitzhak

Shamir and before him, Begin,

the most important person

in their security circle.

I think what

happened to him was

that he felt he could

do whatever he wanted.

People weren't in awe of Avraham Shalom.

They were afraid of him.

They were scared of him.

He was strong,

forceful, smart,

very stubborn,

uncompromising and a bully.

If he didn't like something,

heads would roll.

PERM I was in Jerusalem when

the 300 bus incident occurred.

The Chief of Central Command

called me on the hotline.

A bus going south from

Tel Aviv was hijacked

and headed to Gaza.

There was a chase

with helicopters.

The bus stopped just

outside my district.

They called that morning to

say that they stormed the bus

and two terrorists were

taken to interrogation.

I turned on the news and heard that

all the terrorists were killed.

I told my wife that

something stinks here.

Please describe what

happened that evening.

You got a call and were

told a bus was hijacked?

I don't remember.

I was in Haifa.

Yes, and...

They said, "A bus was hijacked.

Come. " So I went.

"The Terrorist Beaten to Death

by the Security Forces"

The army handled it.

During the operation,

they killed two, and

two came out unharmed.

I didn't know that then.

They beat the daylights

out of them,

the two of them.

So the Shin Bet took them...

I asked Ehud,

the Head of Operations,

what state were they in.

He said they were almost dead.

Maybe the soldiers said so.

So I said, "Hit them

again and finish it. "

He didn't do that.

He did what he described,

which I found

out a year later.

What did he do?

I think he took a rock

and smashed their heads in,

but they were unconscious.

I don't know what

state they were in.

The photo showed them

before they were beaten up.

The army pounced on them.

The photo was

taken before that.

It's not how they looked

when we got them.

How did they look?

I don't know, but some

thought they were dead.

They broke their bones.

It was a lynching.

You didn't

physically see them?

I didn't see them.

We killed a terrorist,

whose hands were tied,

who no longer

threatened us.

BY What right?

But in the Shin

Bet back then,

there was no such concept

as an illegal order.

Not only did

the Shin Bet fail.

The Cabinet and the

Prime Minister failed,

and to some degree,

they oversee the Shin Bet.

PERM It's a tough question.

Did the Prime Minister know

about the premeditated murder,

the plan to kill the terrorist

caught on the 300 bus?

Did the head of Shin

Bet have the authority

to do that, to make

those decisions?

Under what circumstances did

Shamir give you permission to kill?

There were one or two cases,

when I couldn't find him,

and it had to be done.

What had to be done?

We had to deal with Arabs who

were about to launch an attack,

or that launched an attack.

He said, "if you can't find

me, decide on your own. "

When did you realize

that you had to resign?

I offered my resignation

to Shamir the next day.

He said, "Don't you dare. "

He was afraid that if I resigned,

he'd have to resign, too.

He went to Shimon Peres.

Rabin was Defense Minister.

He said, "You gave

similar permission to kill,

"so if you leave

us to the wolves,

"we'll drag you down with us. "

They kept telling me what

to do and how to respond.

I didn't do anything

without coordinating it.

I never imagined that after

a year of coordinating,

they'd drop the issue

and say, "We didn't know. "

I don't take politicians

seriously anymore.

Because?

Because I saw that

they couldn't be trusted.

They abandon the wounded in the field.

That's not for me.

You are the wounded?

Not just me.

The whole Shin Bet.

The Shin Bet's operatives said,

"We're sent on missions 24/7.

"Some are of questionable legality.

Some are barely legal.

"Some are legal.

"No one gives

us any backing.

"As soon as the press finds

out about an operation,

"if we don't get any support

from the politicians,

"it's a sign that

they abandoned us. "

Head of Shin Bet to resign... "

The Shin Bet's exposure as

a result of the 300 bus incident

and the sense that,

"Guys, we're not omnipotent.

"There's a legal system

above us" began to sink in.

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