One Israeli critic doesn’t much like the spread of the Middle East spy story now is invading your screens.
We’re deep into 2018 and it’s as if American cinema and television have become part of the Israeli Intelligence Heritage Center. Bibi can be as proud as all get-out: The new big thing is to be a Mossad agent or an Israeli military man. Spiderman – out; Rafi Eitan – in. In recent months we’ve seen films about Operation Entebbe (“Seven Days in Entebbe”); Eichmann’s capture (“Operation Finale”); and “The Angel,” the new Netflix movie about the double agent Ashram Marwan.
I had noticed this trend too.
I like a good spy show as much as the next guy or girl, but there is something propagandistic about this outpouring of Zionist-flavored content, especially as President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu press for war on Iran–something that you’re more likely to find criticized in Israel than in the United States or Hollywood.
Nissan Shor says these filmmakers prefers “to ignore social context.”
The film and television industry wants new heroes. It isn’t able to invent the new James Bond, so it uses existing narratives, worked over and distilled to suit a simplistic worldview that has sex appeal and cinematic rhythm. But the agents who carried out the abductions and assassinations are not just evidence of resourcefulness and courage, but also of political feebleness. Today it’s hard to remember, but like their victims, the PLO terrorists also had families and loves and plans for the future. For every fearless Mossadnik there are cowardly, blind and recalcitrant leaders who prefer the way of force and violence.
Here’s the trailer for Season 2 of Fauda, a series about Israeli operatives on the Palestinian West Bank.
Source: How Netflix fell in love with the Mossad – Israel News – Haaretz.com
