Les Patriotes
Directed by Eric Rochant
At the Academy Twin in Sydney and Cinema Como in Melbourne from May 25
Reviewed by Jennifer Thompson
Many fawning journalistic words have been written about Israel's secret service agency, the Institution for Intelligence and Special Assignments, better known as Mossad.
The Zionist mythology of garrison Israel as a national home for the Jewish people, surrounded by enemy states, lies at the heart of Israeli popular support for the activities of Mossad and Israel's other secret services. Despite this, the real methods and operations of the Mossad remain a secret from almost all Israelis.
Eric Rochant's film doesn't take on any of the myths. In fact, he defends the role of the secret services, but he does bring to light a snippet of the operations of Mossad.
He said of the film, "Showing that a secret service is immoral won't surprise anyone. War is dirty and so is the undercover war." The film is really about the central character's commitment to Mossad and its by-any-means-necessary operations in the face of growing doubts about the methods involved.
The central character, Ariel Brenner (Yvan Attal) at the age of 18 leaves his home and family in Paris to join Mossad. From that time, they know nothing of his real life. We follow Ariel through his selection, training and his first two secret missions. He is posted to one of Mossad's toughest units, whose autonomous activities remain unscrutinised by any Israeli authority, barring the prime minister.
The two operations portrayed bear close resemblance to real events in Israeli secret service history. The first involves the unsuccessful attempts to get the plans for a nuclear reactor being built with French technical assistance by an "enemy state". The purpose is to determine whether the reactor is peaceful or military, in which case Israel will destroy it.
In June 1981, Israel really did bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, using F-16s purchased with US help on the proviso that they be "for defensive purposes only". The bombing caused controversy in both the US and Israel when it was discovered that Israel had no evidence of Iraqi capability of producing weapons-grade plutonium.
The second operation leads Ariel to question morally his loyalty to Mossad. He is assigned to be the contact point for a US Jewish citizen, Jeremy Pelman (Richard Masur) who works in naval intelligence. Pelman begins spying for Israel, passing on high-level secrets including on Soviet and other military installations for nuclear targeting. Pelman is caught by his government, and Mossad abandons him, leading to his imprisonment for many years.
The real-life corollary was Jonathon Pollard, who worked in US naval intelligence. He supplied Israel with a huge quantity of secret information before his unmasking in November 1985. In mid-May 1982, three weeks before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Pollard supplied an astonishing assortment of US technical data about the air defence systems in Syria. The Israeli Air Force, using electronic counter measures, was able to demolish the Syrian Air Force and destroy more than 70 missile launchers during the war in Lebanon.
As well as material gathered in US embassies in Middle Eastern states, Pollard supplied US nuclear targeting data on the location of Soviet military targets, information on Soviet air defences, codes for US diplomatic communications and the US intelligence's annual review of the Soviet strategic arms system. In March 1987, Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment in the US. Israel's spying operation in the US was largely hushed up.
Unfortunately, while the film presents a story designed to question the morality of Mossad's operations, it doesn't tell you the end results of the real life events upon which it is loosely based. It is, however, totally engrossing.