Although the St. Albans School of Public Service class of 2013 stayed on campus today (a good choice given the heat wave in DC), they stayed as busy as ever. In the morning, SPS 2013 had the chance to talk all things China with a 30-year veteran of the CIA before heading off to classes in Economics and International Relations. In the afternoon, SPS watched the Oscar-nominated film "The Gatekeepers," in which the film-maker interviewed six former heads of the Shin Bet (Israeli Army intelligence) about Israel's counter-terrorism policies over the past four decades.
The New York Times stated that "[i]t is hard to imagine a movie about the Middle East that could be more timely, more painfully urgent, more challenging to conventional wisdom on all sides of the conflict." (
Click HERE for the full New York Times review of the film.) With interview topics that included targeted assassinations and the use of force during interrogations, the film tied into SPS 2013's previous activities looking at aspects of the American war on terror, and certainly encouraged the students to continue to look at policy issues in a nuanced way.
