TEHRAN- Ulterior motives lurking behind the screening of a documentary that unveils leaked footage of the Israeli police questioning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have come to the fore.

The documentary called The Bibi Files was premiered as a work-in-progress at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival this week.  
The film, directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Alex Gibney, features never-before-seen footage of the police interrogations of Netanyahu, his family and his inner circle on corruption allegations. The graft charges were recorded between 2016 and 2018, and have never been released in Israel due to privacy laws.
According to Variety magazine, the recordings of Netanyahu being questioned by police between those years were leaked to Bloom in early 2023. 
When he received the tapes, Israel was witnessing mass demonstrations against Netanyahu’s push for his controversial judicial reforms. The recordings consist of thousands of hours of interviews. 
The documentary depicts Netanyahu as a leader facing multiple criminal convictions, such as bribery, and how his actions since being indicted have affected his decision-making, including around the Al-Aqsa Storm, a surprise military operation carried out by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7 last year. 
Netanyahu, known as Bibi, is on trial for fraud and breach of trust in three separate cases filed in 2019. These cases are listed as 1,000, 2,000 and 4,000, which include bribery charges. 
Netanyahu’s first trial was suspended due to the Al-Aqsa Storm Operation and the ensuing Israeli genocidal war in Gaza. The Israeli prime minister has flatly rejected any wrongdoing describing the charges as complete fabrication and a witch hunt. 

Political maneuvering 

The Bibi Files that made its debut at the Canadian festival took the lid off Netanyahu’s leaked police interrogation videos for the first time but it seems to be a strategic chess move by the West within the grand theater of public perception.
Israeli media have already leaked the incriminating evidence in the interrogation videos. Hence, the film doesn’t reveal new information. 
Western countries, in particular the United States, are under fire for feeding Israel’s war machine in Gaza by providing the regime with unwavering military support. Large protests have been held in the United States, Canada and European countries against the Gaza war and the West’s support for the onslaught over the past months.  
Besides, Israel’s brutalities in Gaza have deepened the regime’s international isolation. Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The International Criminal Court (ICC) has also requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his war minister Yoav Gallant over committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. 
Resentment against Israel and the regime’s growing isolation has raised deep concerns among its Western allies.
They fear the growing anti-Israel sentiment will pose a grave danger to the regime’s existence. 
Undoubtedly, all Israeli officials including Netanyahu along with the regime’s Western allies have the blood of Palestinians on their hands. 
But it appears that the West seeks to cast Netanyahu in the role of the sacrificial lamb, a scapegoat for the heinous crimes that the regime has ostensibly committed. 
The Bibi Files toes the line of such a scheme. In fact, the documentary vilifies the protagonist to preserve the power structure of the antagonist.
Zionist lobbies in the US and certain Western leaders act as puppeteers who pull the strings from behind the curtain.
By focusing the spotlight on Netanyahu, they hope to appease growing opposition against Israel’s barbarism and whitewash its atrocities in the Palestinian territories, in particular during the Gaza war. 
Shows like The Bibi Files use a cinematic narrative to shield true villains.  But as the curtains fall and the lights come up, the audience will wake up to the fact that the masterminds have used their comrade to protect themselves. 
The Bibi Files ends with Netanyahu’s late July speech to a joint session of the US Congress where he received massive applause. By weaving a web of deceit and playing the innocent, he tried to justify his army’s carnage in Gaza. When Netanyahu returned to Israel, he butchered more Palestinians including women and children.  
Now Bibi’s US masters have concluded that the butcher of Gaza should be sacrificed to ensure that the apartheid and bogus Israeli regime will continue to exist in the future.