POLICEMAN REVEALS HOW ISRAEL DEALS WITH “TERRORISTS”
For almost 40 minutes, Policeman (Ha-Shoter) begins by depicting camaraderie among a counterterrorist unit of the Israeli police force, focusing on Yaron (played by Yiftak Kllein). But soon deception and hypocrisy cloud his reputation: After urging his pregnant wife Nili (Maital Barda) not to incur bad luck by revealing that she might give birth any day, Yaron does so anyway to get plaudits from his buddies at a party. And in a recent anti-terrorist raid, he is not sad that innocent Arabs are killed, and he later tries to pawn off liability on his buddy Ariel (Gal Hoyberger), whose cancer might be terminal. Then the scene changes dramatically, focusing on a group of radicals energized about the fact that Israel has the widest gap between rich and poor of any Westernized country: They plan to kidnap three billionaires, threaten them with death, and demand TV coverage to state their manifesto about economic inequality. But Yaron’s superior classifies such kidnapping as an act of terrorism. Now, because they are Israelis, Yaron is reluctant to join his SWAT team to carry out orders to kill all five kidnappers. Director Nadav Lapid obviously wants filmviewers to realize how counterterrorism is being conducted in Israel today. MH