Open Files - Benjamin Netanyahu

This Open Files report on Benjamin Netanyahu opens with a shot of him asking, “Why wait?” and then shifts to the murder he ordered of Hamas’s top military leader Ahmed Al-Jabari in November of 2012, followed by the war he unleashed on Gaza shortly thereafter without the approval of the UN Security Council, in which 165 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,000 wounded. “They don’t want Palestinians to be independent,” says one analyst. “They want Palestinians to collaborate with them to oppress other Palestinians.” Open Files then looks briefly at Netanyahu’s family background, his stint in the special forces of the Israeli Army in the 1967 war, his grooming in the United States, and his flagrant use of repression against the enemies he has created, above all the Palestinian State. We learn that once in power in Israel, Netanyahu focused a large part the country’s technological development on security and armaments and is also a major client of the United States and other major arms vendors of the world. In the film, university professors and human rights activists speak of the way he has fostered inequalities within Israeli society, made life impossible for the Palestinians, and expanded the fragmentation of the West Bank through building more settlements and erecting the wall. His involvement in corruption scandals and his efforts to silence dissent within Israel are also topics of discussion. teleSUR