‘Netanyahu’s a weak man, and weak men punish others when they have the opportunity’

Alex Gibney was sitting in his New York office in early 2023 when a message from Israel caught his attention. The Oscar-winning filmmaker, regarded as one of the most prolific documentary creators in the United States, was immersed in multiple projects, including a series on tennis legend Boris Becker, a music documentary on Paul Simon and secretive endeavors on Elon Musk and Salman Rushdie.

Despite his packed schedule, the mysterious message piqued his interest—it offered access to video recordings from the police interrogations of Benjamin Netanyahu. A year and a half later, The Bibi Files, a documentary directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Gibney, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

“I got a leak—a message on Signal saying, ‘We have this interesting material. Would you be interested?’ Of course, I get these kinds of messages sometimes, and some turn out to be pranks. But I followed up, and this time it was real,” Gibney tells Ynet in an exclusive interview.

“As a filmmaker, I always ask myself: Why should this be a movie? In this case, the leaked material was fascinating in itself and also told a compelling story—a story of corruption. I’m a student of corruption, and this was potent material.”

Gibney, 71, known for tackling corruption in films exposing the schemes of power-hungry politicians and businessmen, first delved into Netanyahu’s actions in his 2016 film Zero Days. There, he linked Netanyahu to the spread of the Stuxnet malware, originally a joint U.S.-Israel cyber effort to thwart Iran’s nuclear program.

In The Bibi Files, Gibney and Bloom take a closer look at Netanyahu, his family and his inner circle, offering an exclusive glimpse into leaked interrogation footage. The documentary alleges that Netanyahu’s and his wife Sara’s greed entangled them with the law, motivated his judicial overhaul initiative and influenced his decision-making in the war with Hamas.

“I received it early in 2023, well before October 7. What stood out to me was how Netanyahu occupies such a central position in a geopolitical flashpoint—one that is now threatening to engulf the world,” he says.

Bloom, who previously collaborated with Gibney on Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes and We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, was tapped to direct the project. Initially, she questioned whether the story, which is mostly well-known among Israeli audiences, would interest an international audience.

“He’s Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, so it’s a stretch to say he’s marginal. We never thought of him that way. Unfortunately for Israel, they’ve made themselves such a central story, especially with the proposed Supreme Court overhaul. The unprecedented demonstrations drew a lot of interest—people wanted to know why,” she explains.

Set for release on December 11 on the alternative streaming platform Jolt, which Gibney co-founded, the documentary faced hurdles securing distribution through major U.S. content companies. Legal restrictions in Israel, barring the broadcast of interrogation footage without the subject’s consent, prevent the film’s release there—ironically, the same reason the footage found its way to Gibney.

“The quality of vigorous journalism in Israel is very high, and there’s a lot of open debate there—debate that people might hesitate to confront elsewhere. Some may feel uncomfortable addressing certain topics or question whether they should even be discussed,” he says.

“There was a legal issue with the footage. It couldn’t be officially distributed in Israel. That created an opportunity for it to be part of a film produced outside of Israel, which could potentially reach back into the country indirectly—whether through information circulating or leaks.

“The source understood that I might be in a better position legally to handle the material in ways they couldn’t. There are still legal protections in the United States, at least for now, that allow for this kind of work. In that sense, it made it possible to bring this story to light.”

What can the film contribute to understanding Netanyahu’s character for the Israeli audience?
“He grew up, in part, in Philadelphia, so he has a kind of American origin story. But I think what really drew me in was the idea of an important story about corruption—personal corruption and, ultimately, political corruption.

People in Israel already know this, but they don’t know it as much abroad. Netanyahu’s reputation as a great statesman outside Israel gave him a lot of currency inside Israel, especially through his relationship with the United States. That connection allowed him to maintain power and influence. So how he’s perceived internationally turns out to be incredibly important.

As a filmmaker, what struck me was how different it is to see these things in the flesh. You get an up-close view of Netanyahu, Sara and [Arnon] Milchan. You can feel the sweat of corruption in these videotapes in a way that just doesn’t come through in transcripts. That’s what made me feel this story was both important and worth making into a film.”

For Israeli audiences, the most striking revelations lie in the unfiltered portrayal of Netanyahu, his wife Sara and their son Yair during police interrogations. Unlike controlled public appearances or media interviews, the Netanyahus have no command over the conversation in these settings. The film’s most dramatic moments showcase Sara and Yair’s anger and arrogance as they lash out at investigators.

“They’re not scared. They’re not intimidated. They walk into the room with this sense of entitlement, like, ‘How dare you bring me in here.’ What’s worse is there’s a kind of contempt for the state and the rule of law in what they have to say. It’s like they’re saying, ‘We’re the only thing that matters, and you are bugs.’ When you start calling the police ‘the Stasi’ or ‘the Gestapo’ and they clump everyone together—the public, the media, the police—’everyone is involved in this conspiracy,’ doesn’t that give you pause that It might honestly be you,” says Gibney.

Unlike Sara and Yair Netanyahu and other filmed subjects of the investigation—such as Arnon Milchan, media mogul Shaul Elovitch, and state witness Nir Hefetz, who were summoned to police stations—Netanyahu’s questioning takes place in his office.

He maintains his composure most of the time, frequently resorting to his characteristic “I don’t remember” responses and occasionally giving his interrogators lessons in leadership. However, there are moments when he is seen slamming his hands on the table and shouting in reaction to evidence presented to him regarding the cigars and champagne case, as well as his relationship with Elovitch.

“Alex and I had this discussion back and forth,” Bloom says. “How aware is he of the cameras? It’s a consumer camera that’s set up in his office, pointed at him, so he doesn’t forget it’s there. Sara is a much more unfiltered presence in the film and people criticize her with valid reason, but there is something more honest about her. She has a feeling and she expresses it, and he is kind of the master of masks. But every so often it slips. If you’re sitting there for four hours, it’ll slip at some point. It’s not as if he can get away with it like when a journalist on the runway asks him a few questions. There’s a sort of psychological quality to the material.”

In addition to the filmed interrogations offering an unfiltered glimpse into the Netanyahu family’s character traits, testimony from other subjects sheds light on their fondness for gifts and ties to cronyism.

Among the allegations are claims that Sara Netanyahu has a penchant for expensive jewelry at others’ expense and a particular taste for fine champagne.

Alongside the jaw-dropping footage from the interrogation rooms, the documentary features interviews with journalist Raviv Drucker (also involved as a producer), former prime minister Ehud Olmert, former household manager Meni Naftali and Netanyahu’s childhood friend, Uzi Beller. These accounts detail behind-the-scenes events and paint a picture of the Netanyahu family’s indulgent lifestyle and interpersonal dynamics, emphasizing Sara Netanyahu’s influence over both her husband and the state.

As Sheldon Adelson, the late billionaire and staunch Netanyahu supporter, remarked during an investigation: “It’s better if she keeps her nose out of it.”

“When talking to people, they’d share how terrible things were,” Bloom says. “Some stories couldn’t even make it into the film—like Bibi calling them in the middle of the night, putting them on speakerphone with Sara listening. It’s absurd but it’s also serious.”

Gibney’s cinematic approach to social and political issues has shone through in films like Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)—which won him an Oscar, The Armstrong Lie (2014) and Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015), which contributed to the decline of the Church of Scientology.

The Bibi Files joins this body of work, framing Netanyahu as part of a global group of authoritarian leaders—including Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Donald Trump (as well as former leaders like Jair Bolsonaro and Rodrigo Duterte)—who use their political power to fulfill personal greed and amass unchecked authority, all while undermining the rule of law and institutional frameworks.

Gibney argues that Netanyahu’s strategies toward Israel’s judiciary, media and police mirror tactics from the authoritarian playbook. These methods are again on display as Netanyahu confronts Shin Bet investigators probing leaks from his office and navigates restrictions imposed by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara on his political powers.

“I think that Americans recognize this behavior as very Trumpian. Trump’s putting Matt Gaetz in charge of the Department of Justice now because he felt that he was badly handled. So now the Department of Justice will become just sort of a grudge fulfillment apparatus. Just an instrument of brute power, rather than something that’s attentive to the rule of law,” says Gibney, who is currently rewriting the third act of his film on Elon Musk due to Musk’s recent alignment with Trump’s inner circle as a financial and political supporter.

“It starts with a kind of personal corruption and contempt for the rule of law and ultimately develops into kind of messianic behavior, where you believe that because you are good and because you care so much about the nation that you’re increasingly entitled to more and more and more for yourself. But really, it springs from your own personal greed and venality. What you see on display is human behavior, but the worst side of human behavior and how it can overcome some people.

“Some of these other characters have a sort of an actor’s talent. You can see that in the interrogation videos with Netanyahu, he’s a good actor. So is Trump. And some of these other players, like [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar. They know how to motivate the crowd. That turns out to be their secret superpower, and that allows them then to mask their personal corruption and venality.

“Sadly, I’d say that Netanyahu, with the rising body count, is reaching an extraordinary level in terms of the number of people that he’s responsible for killing. It’s a staggering thought.”

Another hallmark of the strongman strategy, according to Gibney, is the use of political crises and wars to maintain power by portraying themselves as “strong leaders” defending the nation from external and internal enemies.

In Citizen K, Gibney highlighted how Putin leveraged the Chechen war to cement his Kremlin ascendancy. In The Bibi Files, the filmmakers allege that the October 7 Hamas attack provided Netanyahu with an opportunity to channel public anger and rally support, bolstering his fragile leadership even as his “Mr. Security” image was shattered on that fateful day.

“One parallel with Putin is this willingness to utilize a failure. Look at the hostage situation. Getting the hostages back requires a certain amount of statesmanship, compromise and thinking about a longer game rather than your own political survival,“ Gibney says and mentions the October 2002 Moscow theater terrorist attack, where 132 hostages and 40 Chechen terrorists were killed due to lethal gas pumped into the building.

“If you look at some of what Putin did in terms of literally allowing hostages to be sacrificed, murdered in effect by their own security forces so that he could make a grand statement about how he was protecting the Russian nation. He had no regard at all for the victims. We know the FSB may have manufactured bombings in and around Moscow, so he could blame it on Cheches, so this is part of the old dictator’s playbook,” Gibney explains.

“What happened on October 7 was horrific. But what is ongoing now in Gaza, let’s be honest, is not what you would call a war. Where is the Hamas air force? Is there an air force that goes out to meet the Israeli Air Force every day? No, there isn’t. One of the interview subjects in the film says, ‘What is the goal of this war?’ Is it to keep bombing and killing until you get the last terrorist in a tunnel many years from now? Many more terrorists are going to be made and encouraged because of the carnage that Netanyahu is causing.”

It may not be an equal war, but Israel still faces military and political threats in the Middle East.
Bloom: “It’s a genuine war and the chaos that it causes is keeping him in power. He’s a politician who’s made his career on the statement, ‘I will protect you, I am the king of security,’ so I think that he’s also made his career on the implicit invocation of fear and danger. He campaigns that terror is just around the corner and he’s the only person who can save you.

“With October 7, that became true. Terror was there and he didn’t save them spectacularly. You can think about the accuracy of his campaign statements, he’s made his career on that he is ‘Mr. Security’ and Israel should always be afraid. There’s no other way for it to be in his Matrix. He got that from his father, and he’s run Israel along those lines.”

Gibney: “Sinwar did to Netanyahu what Osama Bin Laden did to the Bush administration. 9/11 was a terrorist act intended to provoke an overreaction which now he is gleefully providing because it’s good for his own political survival, but nothing else.

“Sinwar played Netanyahu like a fiddle. He knew exactly what Netanyahu was going to do and that was going to derail the Saudi-Israeli agreement. It was going to make Israel a pariah state. In that sense, the future of Israel, I would argue, should be looked through the lens of the idea that actually Netanyahu is executing Sinwar’s plan.”

Toward its conclusion, The Bibi Files portrays Netanyahu’s political alliance with far-right figures Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich as his final breach, sacrificing Israeli democracy and the rule of law for political survival. This alliance, the filmmakers argue, has plunged the state into corruption while giving these politicians a global stage to be exposed as agents of chaos.

“They seem to be important figures in the storytelling because they’re keeping Netanyahu in power. Netanyahu likes to present it as the new normal, but it’s not. It’s an extraordinary alliance and terrifying,” Bloom says.

“It signals the bottom falling out. What lengths will he go to in order to stay in power? Some may present them as his puppet masters, and in a sense, they are right because they know how much he needs them. But he’s a willing participant in all of this. It’s not like they’ve kidnapped him. He identified them as coalition partners, went after them and on a daily basis has to keep them happy.”

Gibney references a photograph included in the film, showing Netanyahu alongside Smotrich with an expression of disdain and embarrassment on his face.

“That moment is really powerful because it’s full of such ambiguity in his expression. The actor wasn’t playing the part. ‘Oh my God, I’ve had to play ball with this outrageous terrorist in order to save myself from being prosecuted for champagne and cigars.’ It’s really a chilling moment because you can see the weakness in Netanyahu in addition to his so-called strength. He masquerades as a strongman. Another great victory of the film is that it shows the weakness of the bully—the person who’s bullied by his own wife, who’s bullied by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. He’s a weak man, and what weak men sometimes do is punish others when they have the opportunity.”

Following screenings at the Toronto, Woodstock and Doc NYC film festivals, The Bibi Files is set for wider distribution in the United States and internationally, with an Oscar campaign in the works.

However, the film will not be released in Israel due to legal restrictions on broadcasting interrogation footage without the subject’s consent. Despite these barriers, the filmmakers hope the documentary will eventually reach Israeli audiences.

Netanyahu and his allies reportedly sought to cancel its Toronto premiere but failed. Gibney and Bloom report no further resistance or personal threats but express concern for their co-producer, investigative journalist Raviv Drucker, who could face repercussions.

“Raviv Drucker has gotten some blowback,” Bloom says. “It can’t be pleasant for him, and in this current climate, that is worse than ever before, where people are really fired, and their livelihoods are easily affected. To his credit, he carries on doing what he’s doing. I don’t know if I’d be that brave if I were living there and trying to support kids and a family.”

The reality depicted in The Bibi Files, both before and after October 7, is deeply painful and infuriating. Yet the filmmakers are careful to distinguish between Netanyahu, his political allies and the broader Israeli public.

The inclusion of mass protests against judicial overhaul and for the release of hostages, alongside interviews with figures like Drucker, former prime minister Ehud Olmert and ex-security officials Ami Ayalon and Nimrod Novik, presents Israeli society as a hostage to its leadership’s failures.

“Israel is divided. I don’t feel like we fabricated anything. It is the other way around—you actually show the reality that the world doesn’t see,” Bloom says.

“Of course, it’s intentional to show that Israelis are not a monolith, that there’s a plurality of views and a plurality of feelings. When people come out with statements saying, ‘Israelis are X,’ you want to say, ‘Well, which Israelis?’ It’s about as useful as saying, ‘Well, Americans are Y,’ and you’re like, ‘Well, which Americans?’ because there’s a big divide in America.”

Gibney adds: “The concern is that Netanyahu, step by step, is destroying Israel as a liberal democracy. The voices that are highlighted in the film are voices who are saying, ‘We’re not going to let him do that.’ I think showing that conflict was very important.”

Are you concerned about Israel’s future?
Bloom: “When you’re there, you can’t help but feel the hollowing out of Israel and it’s sometimes not obvious. At first, the educational system is completely corrupted at the moment. Israel used to have a great public school educational system. It seems terribly underfunded now. More and more money goes to the Orthodox who don’t teach things like science and math. They teach the Talmud and that’s that. It seems like there are so many possible consequences in this direction. People are being appointed who have no qualifications because he demands loyalty and it’s become like a tournament of hunchbacks in power. People who take pride in not reading books. The totally banal emptiness of the people who he’s putting in power and I find that terrifying.”

Can the situation improve without Netanyahu in power?
Bloom: “Israel is in a very difficult situation. Its population is very divided and there are a lot of competing interests. If you look at Brothers and Sisters in Arms versus the Orthodox, I don’t know how they go forward to common ground. You do know that they deserve better than a prime minister who is steeped in his own personal travails and that he has a monkey on his back at all times. It is obvious that he’s not a leader who has the best interests of the nation at the forefront of his mind. There are alternatives and it’s time for an alternative.”