In the very creation of “Bethlehem”, first-time director Yuval Adler and his co-screenwriter Ali Waked might very well deliver the film’s most powerful message. Adler is an Israeli citizen who lived for years in the United States, Waked is a Palestinian journalist who worked for over a decade covering the conflict in his region; that the two of them got together to work on creating art should be inspiring enough, but the film that came from their collaboration is also a mesmerizing thriller.

Sanfur (Shadi Mar’i) is a Palestinian teenager who gets unwillingly recruited by the Israeli secret service to track the actions of his brother Ibrahim (Hisham Suliman), a militant who has been on Israel’s most wanted list for years. When we meet Sanfur, he has already been working with Israel for over two years and we see him feel almost at home when he attends a rendezvous with his handler Razi (Tsahi Halevi), who conversely treats him like a son. That these two act and look like they’re related is only the first of the film’s many surprises, as we learn about the process through which the secret service picks emotionally unstable subjects to turn against their country.

Slowly we see how Sanfur falls into an endless pit of despair as he wonders where his allegiances stand and where they should be. It’s obvious that he seens Razi as a father because he’s not anyone’s favorite back at home. But by the time we learn how he was recruited, the film has already unraveled into a harrowing Greek tragedy from which no one can come unscathed. That the film does this without becoming moralistic is even more astonishing because it fleshes out Razi and Samfur as men who while committed to duty, try at all costs to preserve their humanity.

Adler shoots his film using urgent handheld cameras and natural lighting, which give it the feeling of being a documentary. Especially commendable are the performances by the volatile Mar’i and the serene, deeply melancholic Halevi, who surprise, were also making their feature film debuts. “Bethlehem” should be required viewing for those who take sides too easily, given that, like the best of political films it exposes facts without asking us to cast a vote. That the case we see here is a fictionalized account of the same dilemmas many people go through on a daily basis should be enough to spark a debate once the credits start rolling.