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Arjun Singh 0:04
From the Lever's reader supported newsroom, this is Lever Time. I'm Arjun Singh. Is it time for America and Israel to break up? It's a question that's been roiling Americans, Israelis, and frankly, much of the world is the devastation of the October 7th attacks, and Israel's campaign in Gaza has left 10s of 1000s dead, despite desperate pleas from Gazans and widespread anger throughout the United States at the scale of Israel's brutality in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been undeterred, and he's had the full support of the US government. But things might be changing. On Wednesday, a group of Democratic senators tried to block the sale of arms to Israel, a historic move, especially considering America's often ironclad support of Israel. Then the International Criminal Court put out an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. So today, on lever time, I'm going to sit down with filmmaker Alex Gibney, he's one of the minds behind a new documentary about Netanyahu that focuses on his corruption and brazen use of his ministerial powers for personal gain, featuring never before seen footage of Netanyahu being interrogated. It shows a different side of the Prime Minister, one that's often hidden from the public.

Speaker 1 1:23
This case, the facts are really simple. The prime minister and his wife are getting gifts, and

Arjun Singh 1:29
it's a side that may reveal the darker truth of why Netanyahu has waged the war for as long as he has seen favor. Just a quick note to listeners, Alex Gibney and I sat down before the Senate vote, and the ICC issued a criminal warrant for Netanyahu.

Arjun Singh 1:47
I'm absolutely thrilled to have you here. Alex Gibney, you've produced some of the most fascinating documentaries that I've ever seen. Now you're taking on Benjamin Netanyahu. So for context, a few years ago, Benjamin Netanyahu the current Prime Minister of Israel, he was indicted on allegations of bribery and fraud. In one case, he's alleged to have taken bribes from prominent business leaders advocated for tax breaks to them. In another, he's alleged to have cut a deal with a newspaper publisher, which would have resulted in Netanyahu getting better coverage if he used the government to clamp down on the paper's rival. So that's the background. You've got a new documentary out the BB files by director Alexis Bloom. One of the notable things is that you show footage of Netanyahu being interrogated for the first time. And I want listeners to really know that distinction, that we see him, not just hear him as a documentarian. Why do you think it's important for people who can to actually witness this footage and see Netanyahu is body language during these interrogations?

Alex Gibney 2:49
Well, you know, I've done a lot of films about corruption, and you rarely get an opportunity. Sometimes you do, but you rarely get an opportunity to see the perp or the accused perp, the alleged perp sort of shuck and jive and answer questions and and respond to interrogations, because that's what these are. They're videotapes of police interrogations in the corruption, in what led to the indictment in the corruption trial. So you see Netanyahu up close and and while he's still a performer in these videotapes, he's performing for a different audience than I think he thought he was performing for. And for example, you know, in regard to how he allegedly handled Hamas, and this is before October 7, uh, of course, the godfather Keep your friends close and your enemies close. So that's not something you would have expected to see. Also in these tapes which were leaked to me. And they were leaked to me during the the Judicial Crisis, prior to in 2023 prior to the, you know, the October 7 atrocity, the they also have tapes with his wife, Sarah, his son Yair and also some of the people who bribed him, people like Arnon milchan and others, famed film producer Arnon milchan, as well as various cabinet members, people you know in the media who owned the website that Bibi was trying to influence. So it was pretty delicious to be able to get all these cast of characters who you could show on screen relating to these corruption investigations and how that relates to what would ultimately happen.

Arjun Singh 4:50
Yeah, and you started this movie before the October 7 attacks in Israel. When you started, what was the thesis and the thrust of the film? What were you hoping to convey to. The viewers, and how did October 7 and everything that we've seen come after change your film and you know, whatever the message you're trying to convey is?

Alex Gibney 5:12
Well, I think that the initial I mean, you know, I was leaked the tapes. Alexis bloom directed the film, but I think what made me feel that this was an important project to embark on was the fact that Israel, at the time, was was in the middle of a kind of identity crisis over attempts by Netanyahu to alter the power of the judicial system, and in part, that was to appease his right wing Coalition who desperately wanted to expand settlements in the West Bank. And also this was a Gambit by Netanyahu to actually influence the judiciary at a time when he was facing the judicial music in the form of a corruption trial. So to me, it was about corruption and and also a kind of drift toward authoritarian rule that's we see throughout the world after October 7 and then the Netanyahu response, which was the devastating attacks on Gaza and now also Lebanon, it revealed a larger and more pernicious corruption, and that corruption was the willingness to do almost anything in in order to be able to stay in power and elude the consequences of his own, you know, mendacity. And so that was that became a much more staggering story. Here we have a guy who's on the verge of taking us all to world war three. Who's, you know, the body count of what he's engendered is staggeringly high and obscenely so and so. And also, I think he, in part, you know, he, he took his eye off the ball because he was thinking so much about his right wing coalition. And part of the reason that October 7 happened was the Netanyahu was actually enabling the funding of Hamas via Qatar, to quote the Godfather again, in order to keep his friends close and his enemies closer, because that would destabilize the Palestinian Authority and thereby allow further um settlements to be built on the on the on the West Bank. So in order to appease this right wing coalition which was keeping him in power. He actually strengthened Hamas and also took his eye off the ball. And if you're also somebody who happens to have a family member who's a hostage, he Netanyahu seems not to care that much about getting the hostages back, and seems to be interested in engaging in a Forever War in order to be able, once again, to stay in power and to elude the consequences of his own corrupt actions. That's some staggering corruption.

Arjun Singh 8:35
Yeah, and I feel like Netanyahu is he's a myth maker. He's created a narrative around himself. But I wonder, Alex, what did you see in the process of making this movie? What is the narrative and the myth that Netanyahu tells about himself as a leader of Israel, and how does that stand in contrast to the Netanyahu we see in the footage, and the Netanyahu you've come to understand after working on this film.

Alex Gibney 9:02
You know, every time I want to say this, every time I talk about this, I should add that, you know, the film was made by by Alexis, and she was the one who went to Israel four times and interviewed some very powerful folks like and people who knew Netanyahu Well, Uzi Beller, it's Charlotte friend. You know, NIR Hefetz, who was the former spokesperson for bibid Olmert, a former prime minister, was convicted and sent to prison for corruption. AMI Alon, the former head of the Shin Bet. So there are some really interesting people who were able to give us a sense of perspective on this and and I think what what's so interesting to me is that Netanyahu is the way Netanyahu would have us all see him is as King Bibi, as this kind of grand statesman. Who is doing great things for Israel

Speaker 1 10:06
government officials are not allowed to take gifts. This is corruption.

Alex Gibney 10:10
What this film shows is a kind of grubby, petty, corrupt, venal character,

Speaker 1 10:22
the bad so Netanyahu is very important. Both of them never surrendered, never compromised.

Alex Gibney 10:29
Who felt that because he was doing so much for Israel, he deserved the blandishments of bribes and cigars and champagne and jewelry for his wife, all the kind of things that you're not supposed to do, or you're not supposed to get so you see him as a kind of a small, scared, scared, in this case, in particular of his wife. You know, he was publicly outed for for being unfaithful to her, and ever since then, I think that the sort of the marital pressure on him has been enormous and and also her sense of entitlement is great as his his sons. So you have this sense of a of a scared man, a scared little man who wants to be rewarded with champagne and cigars for for doing such good things and that venal, petty corruption leads us to something horrible, but it's really very much at odds with the idea of this grand, noble character.

Arjun Singh 11:34
After the break, I continue my conversation with Alex Gibney. We'll be right back.

Arjun Singh 11:43
You know, you've previously covered in your movies, Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos, L Ron Hubbard in Scientology, Vladimir Putin, you know, I'll even throw in you've technically covered Tony Soprano. And a sense I'm sort of getting from you Alice, is that you feel like, is this correct, that Netanyahu corruption in one way, seems more surprising or even more stark than some of these other you know, unsavory people, Enron, I'll put the Enron crew in there too. Were you sort of surprised by the depth of this corruption? Or what is to you that really stands out about Netanyahu corruption? You know, in the spectrum of the people that I had just listed out.

Alex Gibney 12:25
Well, in some ways. I mean, one of the things I thought about was that, as as this woman had asked Klein who worked for, you know, the film producer that was bribing Netanyahu, notes like, in some ways, what surprised me was that the amounts of money and the amounts of gifts were so small. I mean, yeah, if you total them up, you know, we're talking about jewelry, cigars, champagne, that was worth about $300,000 but you're thinking about really cigars in Champaign, though, one of the things I learned over time, you know, in comparing some of the other cases, is that it's not necessarily the size of the deal, it's the sense of entitlement that one gets from it. I remember I did a film long ago called casino Jack in the United States of money. All about the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. And I remember visiting Jack Abramoff in prison, and I said, you know, I'm kind of surprised sometimes at how little, how small the amount of money is in regards to some of these political corruption cases, and he sort of put up his hand and stopped me, and he said, Alex, I could buy a congressman with a stereo. That was kind of a chilling moment for me, but that's also what made me think about the Netanyahu case, and sort of took my breath away, he was willing to take us all to the brink of World War Three for the sake of going.

Arjun Singh 14:09
You know that that makes me think about on a on, I guess it is a more fundamental human level in your time reporting on all this stuff. What do you think it is that drives people towards corruption or to breaking the system, people who have seeming means of wealth power already. And like you said in Netanyahu case, it's so small that to say he wants to enrich himself almost feels like it's missing a psychological aspect there. What do you think over your time covering this it is that drives powerful people to be corrupt or want to break the rules.

Alex Gibney 14:46
A sense of entitlement. I think that's part of it. And also, there's a phrase that I learned when I was doing the film I did about Julian Assange, which is a phrase The police have called noble cause corruption. Yeah. And noble cause corruption. The idea is, look, I'm good, and I'm doing so much good for so many people. Therefore, if I bend the rules or break the rules a little bit, so what, it's serving a higher purpose. And so, you know, you can hear that in the voice of of somebody like Sauron Netanyahu. It's like my husband is a great man. Yeah. And so what are you talking about? Why are you even bothering me with these questions about cigars and champagne and jewelry? You know, don't we deserve it? So that sense of entitlement and that sense that that your the nobil of your Cause at the end justifies the means. You know, I used to think, 2030, years ago, before I'd done a number of these films, that the end did justify the means. Like, you got to get your hands dirty, you know, and and ultimately, the end of the day, all that's important is winning. What we're seeing in our political system today, what happens when the only thing that's important is winning, lie, cheat, steal, um, you know, that's all okay, so long as you win. Well, turns out it's not so okay and, and ultimately, that, I think, is one of the unifying factors in a lot of what I see. Jeff Skilling thought, you know, at Enron thought he was doing something powerful for humanity, that his kind of vigorous, no holds barred version of free market capitalism was making the world a better place, that it was going to lead us to A powerful energy future, and that took him right into traders who were literally sending power out of California so the whole state would go dark, just so they can make a few bucks, right? So, yeah, that's what happens. There's a there's a logic and momentum to corruption that seems to take over, and then people can rationalize it. That's why, you know, I said I showed this film to one woman who is a sort of an expert in corruption. She runs a sort of international corruption Institute, or anti corruption Institute, and she said, yeah, the cigars and the champagne, they were gateway drugs to a deeper corruption. You know, once you once you believe your own press releases about how important you are, you know, I think the same thing happened. I did a film about Lance Armstrong, you know, he believed he was doing so much good for cancer. So, yeah, you know, if, if he's helping them by lying about his doping. So what?

Arjun Singh 17:43
Yeah, the director of the film, Alexis Bloom, when she was going into Israel, when she was talking to people throughout Israeli society, was there any anything surprising or revelatory about the way people thought about Netanyahu? Because on one hand, he's been their longest serving Prime Minister, but he has such a astonishing record of unsavory traits that it I always kind of wonder, how do these two things live side by side? But did she ever give you a sense of the society that has allowed Netanyahu to flourish, if that's a correct way of putting it, or maybe the political system that's allowed in the flourish.

Alex Gibney 18:25
Well, I think you have to see it as one of alliances and and, you know, because one of the things she discovered, and it shouldn't have been a discovery, is that, you know, Israel is deeply divided, yeah, and there are a lot of people who hate Netanyahu and feel that he's just a lot of Israelis who feel who hate Netanyahu feel he's destroying the country. There are a lot of Israelis who are extremely right wing, meaning, you know, they're sort of radical annexations who Netanyahu wouldn't have had his picture taken with a number of years ago, but in order to form this new coalition, in order to stay in power, he had to cozy up to them. So I think that's the dynamic that you see in Israel. It's a deeply divided country, and he's pivoted to the far, far, far right in order to keep his ruling coalition together and that has, you know, that's been problematic so that, I think that was revelatory. It's not that, you know. So there's different shades of policy outcomes that that folks want in Israel, but the most important thing is to see it in that broader context. And how do you form a coalition of people that allow you to stay in power? Sometimes that means in align yourself with some very unsavory characters.

Arjun Singh 19:57
Yeah, and Netanyahu wasn't shy. About trying to change the political system amidst his own corruption crisis happening. Could you talk a little bit about how Netanyahu reacted and tried to fight these charges?

Alex Gibney 20:12
Well, one of the ways he tried to fight the charges, aside from vilifying the investigation, but one of the ways was to try to transform the judiciary. In other words, take power away from the judiciary. And that, like I said before, that that that formed a kind of twofold purpose. On the one hand, it if he could get more control over the judiciary, then that would put a break on the occasional judicial efforts to oppose, you know, illegal settlements in the West Bank. But also he'd have more control over over the investigation into him. It's kind of reminiscent of now that we have a president that's returning to power in this country, Donald Trump, who has managed to rig a supreme court that's basically made it impossible for him to commit a crime while he's in office.

Arjun Singh 21:15
Yeah, you know, as we do see this kind of growing trend of right wing, you know, I would say authoritarianism happening in multiple countries across the globe. We talked on lever time, David and I with the screenwriter, Gabriel Sherman. He wrote the new movie The Apprentice, and he detailed how a fear of Trump put a chill over a lot of studios who wanted to distribute Netanyahu also tried to stop your movie from screening at at least one film festival. Right?

Speaker 2 21:44
He did well. He went to court in Israel just to try to stop the premiere of a of a film in Toronto that wasn't going to fly, and even the Israeli court tossed it out pretty quick. But he certainly did make the move because Netanyahu is obsessed with his coverage, that's one of the things that corruption trial proves two of the cases, case 2000 and case 4000 they're all about trying to manipulate the media. So yeah, but you can see the the authoritarian principle involved here, you know, trying to shut down criticism of you, to try to try to rig the system, rig the the media ecosystem, so that nobody can criticize you.

Arjun Singh 22:33
Do you? Do you feel that as we're going into a second Trump administration, that that's something that's it's going to be harder to make these kind of films, or at least distribute them within our current distribution framework, documentaries like yours, stuff that we put out, like master plan at the lever. You know, sometimes I think that it might not take as Gabe Sherman was telling us an overt, hey, this law is going to be passed, and it's illegal to do it, but just even the vocal threat, the dissatisfaction from a Trump, for example, can be enough to chill people. But do you worry about a chill making these documentaries or trying to report out what we're going to see as probably brazen corruption on the Trump part too?

Alex Gibney 23:17
Hugely. I'm hugely worried about it. I'm worried on a couple of levels. Obviously, you saw, we all saw what Jeff Bezos did at the Washington Post, yeah, you know, just prior to the election, anticipating a possible Trump victory. But I think you know, you're, you're also getting to a place where we may see at the Supreme Court a reassessment at times to be Sullivan. And if that were to happen, you know that that would really put those of us who report on corruption, you know, in a real backpedaling mode. That's so you can see, you know, the beginnings of that trying to happen. You can see what, what Elon Musk, who now you would argue, is almost the shadow president. Seems like, yeah, he's been pretty thin skinned about people who criticize him, and he's changed a platform that I used to enjoy into something that's just a bullhorn for his own views. So, yeah, it's deeply concerning. You're also seeing a lot of very powerful this is really interesting to me, a lot of very powerful executives a big corporation. So you'd think would be not that concerned because they have so much wealth and power, but either because they want more wealth and power and think that they can just make deals with Trump, or because they're concerned that Trump might shave a little bit of money off of their bottom line, the mood is not good in terms of wanting to challenge Trump. So, yeah, I think we should all be concerned. Obviously, you know. Know the lever isn't going to stop and Jigsaw isn't going to stop, but the risks will be higher, I fear.

Arjun Singh 25:08
Yeah, I share that with you. And to return to Netanyahu, I think one thing that has been hard for me to not separate is his corruption trials and his pushing of not just the war in Gaza, but it's spreading towards Lebanon, potentially into conflict with Iran, and to see how, you know, on one hand, this, this gives him reason to keep saying, Let me stay in power. I'm a wartime leader. That is a very, I will be honest, that's a little bit of an emotional though. I think it's an analytical response on my end. How do you see the relationship between Netanyahu drive to further war in the Middle East as this corruption stuff is happening? And I'll say, Yes, it does seem sometimes that he has an advantage to continue the violence, because it gives reason for him to stay in power. But how do you think about those, those two things,

Alex Gibney 26:02
Well, to me, that's the ultimate corruption. I mean, yeah, it's the thing that really almost makes me physically ill, that somebody would embark on a campaign of permanent war just to be able to stay in power, that he would willingly kill people, and let's face it, the way he's prosecuting the war in be it Lebanon or be it Gaza, you know, it's not like in Gaza, he's that, that that Israel is seeing any real resistance to its air force when it goes in with two ton bombs, you know, and the level of Carnage is so outrageous, the unwillingness to let food in to humanitarian aid, you know, all these things, they're international. We don't have to argue about it. They're international rules and laws about this. But you can see how he has seemingly limitless willingness to allow for the killing of civilians in order to be able to engage in longer war. And I do think that when it comes to Netanyahu, there's a deep sense of political cynicism about that. Obviously, for years, he's wanted to involve the United States in a war with Iran, and he's done any number of things which, which might engage us in that war. But also, I think he was playing a really cynical game in this most recent election, because he was, he was gambling that, you know, first Biden and then then candidate Harris, we're not going to take any steps to limit the weapons that we sent to Israel as long as there was an election ongoing, even as he knew that that was going to damage Kamala Harris, in particular, in places like Michigan. So he he pushed it as far as he possibly could, knowing that in this peculiar time prior to an American election, nobody was going to do anything. And so that was the most cynical kind of political calculus I can think of when you're playing with people's lives and figuring, well, they can't do anything.

Arjun Singh 28:25
So is there anyone,

Alex Gibney 28:30
I mean, it just it makes

Arjun Singh 28:31
I completely share that. That's why I'm kind of at a loss to just ask, is there any one trying to change this or push back? Did you and Alexis encounter political will or momentum, that just says this is wrong.

Alex Gibney 28:44
Yeah. I mean, look, you know, one of the things that I found, particularly in terms of, you know, initial previews, both in Toronto, now we're going to, you know, we're going to, the film's going to start to be shown in theaters in New York and LA this coming week, but also in some of the previews we've done, you know, there's a Jewish community in this country that's just outraged, just curious at what Netanyahu is doing in Israel and and I think, you know, in the outgoing Biden administration, and if there had been a Harris administration, there should have been a political will to separate Netanyahu from Israel. That's what Netanyahu does so cleverly, he wraps himself with the flag of Israel. In other words, if you attack me, you're attacking Israel, or you're anti semitic. No, we think you're a deeply corrupt guy who's willing to kill people in order to stay in power. Yeah? So, so, yeah, I do think that from a political standpoint, the more you know, I'm not saying that, that if Netanyahu is gone, all problems in Israel disappear. I'm just saying that. As long as Netanyahu is in power, we can count on more and more and more carnage. So wouldn't it be a good idea to imagine how we we might not support Netanyahu as vigorously as we have been doing

Arjun Singh 30:16
Well, Alex Gibney, the film is the Bibi Files. I recommend everybody go check it out. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today.

Alex Gibney 30:24
Thanks, man. Great to talk to Arjun.

Arjun Singh 30:29
Thanks for listening to another episode of lever time. This episode was produced by Jared Mar and Ronnie ricoman, with editing support from Joel Warner and Lucy Dean Stockton. Our theme music is composed by Nick Campbell. We'll be back next week with another episode of Lever Time.