Jonathan Jakubowicz’s Soul Of A Nation leaves viewers with a depressing impression of contemporary Israel.
Now available on digital platforms, his somber, thought-provoking documentary can be seen as a wakeup call of the dangers of polarization in this deeply divided nation.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s divisive plan in 2023 to reform the judiciary by weakening the Supreme Court and increasing his executive powers aroused a storm of indignation and anger and set off frequent anti-government demonstrations.
It also created an image of a bitterly disunited country whose citizens were greatly at odds. This perception led Israel’s enemies, ranging from Hamas to Hezbollah, to falsely assume that the Jewish state was weak, vulnerable and ripe for the picking.
Jakubowicz, a Jewish filmmaker from Venezuela, was in Israel during these momentous events. He claims that Netanyahu’s proposal to overhaul the judiciary left no middle ground and plunged Israel into seemingly irreconcilable camps.
And as Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned during this domestic crisis, it brought Israel menacingly close to civil war.
The mounting acrimony rekindled Jakubowicz’s memories of Venezuela more than a decade ago.
Jakubowicz, who has family connections in Israel, grew up in Venezuela, which was once one of the most stable countries in Latin America. But then everything changed as Venezuelan democracy was undermined by autocrats. As he watched the turbulence in Israel unfold, he was reminded of the political turmoil that had gripped Venezuela.
His starting point in Soul Of A Nation is Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005. The brainchild of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, it traumatized Israeli right-wingers, as Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, says in an interview with Jakubowicz.
Ehud Olmert, who succeeded Sharon, claims he convinced him to take that seminal step, which tore the country asunder.
Within a year of Israel’s pullout, Hamas won a legislative election in Gaza and violently removed the mainstream Fatah regime. From that point forward, Hamas converted that crowded coastal enclave into a bristling armed camp and began firing rockets at Israel, in a prelude to the five cross-border wars that would erupt from 2008 onward.
Jakubowicz then segues to Netanyahu’s decision to include two extremists in his coalition cabinet, a move that further outraged many Israelis. Bezalel Smotrich was appointed minister of finance, while Itamar Ben Gvir was named minister of national security.
At this juncture, Jakubowicz launches into the heart and soul of his film — the concerted effort by Netanyahu to reform the judicial system. It was led by Yariv Levin, the minister of justice and deputy prime minister, and Simcha Rothman, the chairman of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.
Jakubowicz bends over backwards to be fair to both sides and interviews a wide spectrum of Jewish and Arab Israelis. But it soon becomes clear that his sympathies lie with the vocal adversaries of reform.
Among the critics he talks to are Tamir Pardo, the former director of the Mossad, who denounces Netanyahu’s plan as “a betrayal of the values of the Declaration of Independence,” and Aaron Ceichanover, a chemist and Noble Prize laureate whose dripping contempt for Netanyahu and his ministers is visceral.
Their misgivings were shared by the then defence minister, Yoav Gallant, whom Netanyahu sacked after he recommended a pause in the legislative process toward reform. Gallant argued that Israel’s enemies were emboldened by the chaos enveloping Israel.
Anschel Pfeffer, a journalist who has written a biography of Netanyahu, believes that the tumult was potentially catastrophic. It rendered Israel almost ungovernable and, in an unprecedented development, encouraged thousands of army and air force reservists to stay at home when called up for service.
The clash of views that split Israel into warring camps was dangerous. Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister, tells Jakubowicz that polarization is Israel’s foremost security threat today.
Israel was in the thick of the heated debate about reform when Hamas struck on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 civilians and soldiers and kidnapping 251 Israelis and foreigners. Israel fought back, crushed Hamas and its chief ally, Hezbollah, and reduced much of Gaza into a lunar landscape of demolished buildings.
This facet of the film seems tacked on, yet Jakubowicz succeeds in conveying his key message: Israel cannot afford to allow profound internal divisions to simmer and boil when its multitude of foes are so intent on destroying it.