• The Toronto International Film Festival in Canada screened a documentary on Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption
• In an audacious and desperate attempt to block ‘The Bibi Files’, Netanyahu went to Israeli courts, but his claim was dismissed
Prime Minister to the illegal Israeli settlers in Palestine, Benjamin Netanyahu made a court filing earlier this week in an Israeli court over a film that was being screened thousands of miles away in another country.
The film, ‘The Bibi Files’, was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in Canada and aired never-before-seen footage of the Netanyahu family’s interrogation.
At that time, Benjamin Netanyahu was at the centre of a major bribery and corruption scandal which was set to destabilise him in the Israeli polls in the run-up to an election in March 2020.
The American-made documentary directed by Alexis Bloom, covers the Israeli police who recorded thousands of hours of interrogation footage from 2016 to 2018. This footage was leaked to filmmaker Alex Gibney in 2023.
In addition to Netanyahu, the film featured interrogation footage of his wife Sara and son Yair, who lives in the US and is a Tommy Robinson sympathiser.
The film also included the interrogation of friends, associates andhousehold staff, as well as interviews with insiders, including Haaretz journalist Raviv Drucker and former Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon, who also spoke about Netanyahu.
On September 8th, lawyers representing Netanyahu petitioned the Jerusalem District Court for an injunction against Haaretz journalist Raviv Drucker, one of the film’s producers, for publishing footage from a police interrogation without the court’s permission.
The judge denied the request on September 9th owing to lack of jurisdiction and the film was screened later that day and on September 10th.
In a statement made at TIFF, Gibney stated that there was a restriction on distribution in Israel, but went on to say:
“Everywhere else in the world, there's no restriction. So, we plan to distribute it as widely as possible and still stay within the bounds of our promise, or my promise, to the source.”
Throughout his leadership, Netanyahu accepted gifts from wealthy businessmen and dispensed favours to garner more positive press coverage.
In November 2019, Netanyahu was charged by the Israeli attorney general with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three separate cases.
In January 2020, Netanyahu subsequently sought parliamentary immunity from prosecution in a televised speech, hours before an application deadline had to be made over the corruption charges against him.
He later withdrew the immunity request that same month, as it was clear he would not receive immunity as the Knesset (Israeli parliament) hadbeen dissolved ahead of their elections and could not rule on the request before then.
Gibney and Bloom who had been working on the documentary prior to October 7th, went on to say:
"These recordings shed light on Netanyahu's character in a way that is unprecedented and extraordinary. They are powerful evidence of his venal and corrupt character and how that led us to where we are at right now."
