arts & entertainment The Green Prince A film about a Palestinian spy and his Israeli handler. George Robinson Special to the Jewish News A Serving Creative Comfort - Inspired by Modern European Cuisine Reservations: 248-203-6600 210 South Old Woodward, Birmingham n Buy $100 worth of gift cards and get a $20.00 Complimentary gift card for yoursen! 11 Kids Eat Free Monday Off Wine 1/2 ednesday Restaurant Italian Cuisine 248.476.0044 Buy one lunch or dinner entree I and get the second 1/2 off I 1 Of equal or lesser value I Not good with any other coupon. Not good with any other coupons. Not good on holidays. One coupon per couple. Up to $30 I Not good on holidays. One coupon per couple. Up to $30 Expires 10/31/14 Expires 10/31/14 I Corner of Grand River & Haggerty Road Auburn Hills • 1 miles south of the Palace of Auburn Hills Farmington Hills • 1898390 NOW OPEN! 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When everyone around you is a professional liar, you have to trust the person who tells you the truth, however reluctantly. The events that Schirman recounts in the film began in 1983 and climaxed during the George W. Bush administra- tion. But given the events of the summer of 2014, the story of Mosab, the eldest son of one of the founders of Hamas, and his unlikely pact with Gonen, a Shin Bet agent, seems timelier than ever. At the film's outset, each of these men speaks retrospectively about the need to contribute to the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians. The 17-year-old Mosab, the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, decided that his contribution would be an ill-conceived attempt to smuggle guns to Ramallah: "The goal was to kill Israelis:' he says. Despite his amateurish precautions, Mosab was apprehended and identi- fied, and that event that threw him into Gonen's path. Access to a member of the equivalent of the opponent's royal family (Mosab's code name was derived from the green color of the Hamas flag and his "royal" pedigree among Palestinians) and, more important, leverage over him, is the sort of opportunity of which a counterintelli- gence operative dreams. Factor in Mosab's youth and striking naivete, and you have a made-to-order asset for a spy agency. One of the great strengths of The Green Prince is that Schirman and Gonen in particular bring a deliberate and methodical clarity to the workings of this hall of shifting mirrors. The end result of the subtle collision of spy and counterspy was a 10-year-long collaboration, with Mosab providing high-quality intelligence and access to Mosab Hassan Yousef and Gonen Ben Yitzhak in The Green Prince Hamas activities to his Israeli handler. As Gonen drily notes, "This is the equivalent of [Hamas recruiting] the son of the Israeli prime minister:' As the film unfolds, it offers a privi- leged glimpse into the complexities through which a person can be detached from his own community, even his fam- ily, and put into a situation in which the inexorable result is a complete reversal of beliefs and behavior. Such reversals are like a contagion, though. Inevitably, a handler will come to feel invested in the well-being of an agent he is running and, as happened to Gonen and Mosab, the larger institu- tional loyalties may become outweighed by the ties between two agents who have shared more than just an occasional cup of coffee. Consequently, when Gonen oversteps Shin Bet regulations for Mosab, it triggers a series of unexpected occurrences. In the end, the younger man leaves the Middle East for San Diego, asking for asylum from the U.S., only to have his past asso- ciation with Hamas revealed to the highly suspicious agents of Homeland Security, who are only too happy to deport him to Jordan and certain execution. Schirman tells this endlessly fascinat- ing tale through a mixture of testimony by his two central figures, vivid surveil- lance footage from (one assumes) Israeli government sources, TV news clips and murky re-creations. It is a style and structure that would feel rather forced were it not propelled forward with a relentlessly breathless rhythm. The use of dramatic re-creations, which are, by their nature, at least partly invention, in nonfiction film makes me uncomfortable. However, how else can you show an audience what happened? It's not as if governments routinely keep audiovisual records of their most criminal or covert activities. They're probably too busy thinking about their next lie. ❑ The Green Prince is scheduled to open on Friday, Oct.10, at the Landmark Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak.