By Jeffrey Goldberg

Shortly after the United Nations General Assembly voted in late November to upgrade the status of the Palestinians, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that it would advance plans to establish a settlement in an area of the West Bank known as E-1, and that it would build 3,000 additional housing units in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

In the Oscar-nominated The Gatekeepers, Israel's domestic spymasters make the price of occupation clear.

As I watched The Gatekeepers in a small hall in Jerusalem, three thoughts kept repeating in my mind. The first was that if the new Israeli documentary were showing on prime-time television rather than in tiny cinematheque auditoriums, the country's vapid election campaign might morph turn into an urgently needed debate on the occupation. The second was that once the film opens in U.S. theaters on February 1, its interviewees--former heads of Israel's Shin Bet security service--will probably not be invited to speak before certain "pro-Israel" groups in America, the kind that conflate support of Israel with silencing criticism of Israel policies. The film's Oscar nomination for best documentary will not be celebrated in those organizations.

by Dror Moreh -- [The author is the director of the documentary film "The Gatekeepers"] 

Yuval Diskin, former chief of Israel's Shin Bet (Security Service), sat down for a very in-depth interview about his experiences with Israeli leaders and his perspective on the current political leadership. 

Responses from the Prime Minister's Office and Defense Ministry Bureau come at the end.

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