Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic When footage of Benjamin Netanyahu being interrogated by police fell into Alex Gibney\u2019s lap, the documentary filmmaker knew he had to do something with it. Gibney is no stranger to controversial subjects, having forged a career documenting individuals and institutions mired in controversy, from Big Pharma amid the US opioid crisis to Enron and the Church of Scientology. However, a busy schedule meant the 71-year-old needed to call in reinforcements, inviting Alexis Bloom, with whom Gibney had collaborated previously, to direct while he acted as producer.The film was already in the works when the cataclysmic events of October 7 2023 shook the world, followed by Israel\u2019s bloody retaliation in Gaza. \u201cIt was a story about corruption, but after October 7 it became much more,\u201d Gibney says. \u201cThe corruption increased in its magnitude.\u201d\u00a0Gibney was approached by his source in early 2023. The tapes, dated between 2016-18, ran into \u201chundreds of hours\u201d of material connected to Netanyahu\u2019s 2019 indictment on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. They showed Netanyahu, his wife Sara and son Yair, and associates including the Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam being interviewed by Israeli police. There are three cases in total. In one, Netanyahu and his wife are accused of receiving gifts from Milchin and Australian billionaire James Packer in exchange for political favours. In the second case, Netanyahu purportedly offered a deal to Israeli magnate Arnon Mozes, seeking positive coverage in Mozes\u2019s Yedioth Ahronoth daily in return for legislation to hamper the circulation of a rival paper.\u00a0Finally, Netanyahu is accused of granting regulatory favours to Shaul Elovitch, owner of telecoms group Bezeq, in exchange for favourable coverage on the news website Walla.The charges might be old news, but the sight of Netanyahu confronting evidence in real time makes for astonishing viewing. This is Israel\u2019s prime minister as the public has never seen him before: a man at the mercy of his interlocutors, stripped of rehearsal and on the back foot.The trial is ongoing, with Netanyahu due to take the stand for the first time in his corruption trial today. He has denied any wrongdoing and said he was the victim of a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison for bribery and a maximum of three years for fraud and breach of trust.\u00a0\u201cThe source told me, \u2018I believe you can get this film made\u2019,\u201d says Gibney. But there was one hitch: the film couldn\u2019t be shown in Israel, as privacy law prohibits the release of any audio- or videotape gathered as part of official proceedings unless the person taped consents. Netanyahu was unlikely, of course, to give permission.Even outside Israel, The Bibi Files\u2019 journey to the screen was far from a smooth ride: \u201cNobody wanted to give us money,\u201d says Gibney. \u201cNo mainstream streamers came out to support us. They ran in the opposite direction\u201d. Gibney was \u201cdismayed\u201d that even informal conversations were met by disinterest, despite the documentary containing \u201cunique material that nobody else in the world had\u201d.When the team rolled into the Toronto International Film Festival in September, The Bibi Files was unfinished, its future uncertain. Bloom\u2019s decision to show it as a work in progress provoked Netanyahu to file a lawsuit in an attempt to block the screening from going ahead. The lawsuit failed, but the publicity it generated gifted the filmmakers with enough fundraising muscle to get the film finished. The impact of the Toronto screening also gave encouragement to nervy distributors that there was an audience for the film.The Israeli prime minister might cut a beleaguered figure abroad, but at home his popularity has been growing since the country made battlefield gains across the Middle East. His government is among the most far-right in the country\u2019s history; it includes controversial ultranationalists such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, minister of national security, and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich. Netanyahu\u2019s embrace of once-fringe figures is, The Bibi Files suggests, part of a desperate attempt to evade criminal charges and cling on to power. Indeed, the film draws a direct connection between the corruption charges and the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.\u201cI consider myself something of a student of corruption, having made a lot of films about people who are corrupt, or corrupt situations,\u201d says Gibney, \u201cand I\u2019m gobsmacked by the enormity of this man\u2019s corruption.\u201d Netanyahu\u2019s legal team has repeatedly sought to delay his appearance in court, citing the assassination of Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, the murder of six hostages in Rafah, and a rocket attack on Majdal Shams that killed 12 children. \u201c[These] extraordinary events have rendered it impossible to prepare Netanyahu\u2019s testimony adequately,\u201d his lawyers said.On Sunday, senior government ministers called on Israel\u2019s attorney-general Gali Baharav-Miara to delay the start of Netanyahu\u2019s testimony following the fall of the regime in Syria. Ben-Gvir said that by not agreeing to a delay, Baharav-Miara was \u201cabandoning Israel\u2019s security.\u201dGibney sees \u201cvivid parallels\u201d between US president-elect Donald Trump and Netanyahu. \u201cA lot of it revolves around the evisceration of the rule of law,\u201d he explains, referencing the US Supreme Court\u2019s presidential immunity ruling in July and Netanyahu\u2019s since overturned attempt at judicial reform.\u201cBoth Trump and Netanyahu are under a cloud of investigation and indictment,\u201d he continues. \u201cThat sense of trying to undermine or destroy the idea of an independent judiciary is something that is really evident in both cases.\u201dGibney also fears that Trump\u2019s return to the Oval Office could signal an even greater assault on press freedom. Referencing the \u201cdisquieting\u201d alliance with tech billionaire and X owner Elon Musk, Gibney says that he fears the emergence of a de facto \u201cstate media\u201d. One of The Bibi Files\u2019 strengths is that it is shot from a strictly Israeli perspective. Gibney enlisted Raviv Drucker, an Israeli investigative journalist and well-known Netanyahu critic, to advise on the initial footage. \u201cEveryone interviewed is Israeli,\u201d Gibney explains, \u201c[and] they\u2019re calling Netanyahu out. Why the rest of the world can\u2019t do the same thing as Israelis inside Israel can do is a mystery to me.\u201dGibney is optimistic that the documentary will move the dial. But it is critical that Israelis find a way to see The Bibi Files, he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a big deal [for Israelis] to finally see Netanyahu, his wife Sara, his son Yair, as well as many others, in an unmediated way, instead of the stage-managed presser that Netanyahu [usually] gives. This is venal people behaving very badly.\u201d \u2018The Bibi Files\u2019 is in US cinemas from December 11 and in UK cinemas from December 13<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic When footage of Benjamin Netanyahu being interrogated by police fell into Alex Gibney\u2019s lap, the documentary filmmaker knew he had to do something with it. Gibney is no stranger to controversial subjects, having forged a career documenting individuals and institutions mired in controversy, from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":149635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-149634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149636,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149634\/revisions\/149636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}