After every attack on European soil, policy makers ask: what can the EU do to stop terrorist attacks?
Their primary source for answers is Israel.
Since its inception, Israel has been the security state. It invented what has come to be called “ethnic profiling.” The attacks in Europe in recent years have ushered in a golden age for Israeli security companies, sending foreign demand for their expertise and technology soaring.
But with those innovations, Europe also imports a different mindset. What must it be like to live in a society where people keep close and constant tabs on one another?
De Correspondent presents the documentary State of Alert, Israel Style, created by Israeli filmmaker Nirit Peled and researcher William de Bruijn from VPRO Backlight.
Backlight is an acclaimed documentary series produced by the Dutch public broadcasting service VPRO. For this episode, Peled traveled to her native country to speak with representatives of an industry that’s pulling out all the stops to perfect the surveillance state. But can that even be done? And if so, is it a model we would want to adopt?
—Translated from Dutch by Grayson Morris and Erica Moore
The documentary is part of Security for Sale – investigative reporting by De Correspondent on Europe’s security industry in partnership with 22 journalists from 11 European countries. Security for Sale is made possible by Journalismfund.eu
