I'm making no predictions about the worth or otherwise of this series until I've seen it with my own eyes. However, this item in today's Australian Jewish News does make it look... well, promising:
"A new TV series set to begin airing on SBS1 this Sunday prompted outrage from the Jewish community when it was broadcast in the UK earlier this year. The Promise tells the story of Erin, a young London woman, heading to Israel for the summer, who discovers the diary of her sick grandfather, which relates his part in the post-World War II British peacekeeping [!!!] force in pre-state Palestine. According to the Israeli Embassy in the UK, it received more complaints about The Promise than any other program, with a spokesman saying it 'created a new category of hostility towards Israel'. President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Vivian Wineman, wrote a letter to the UK broadcaster Channel 4 slating it as 'a propagandist caricature'. He added: 'The Promise consistently demonised Jews, by using distasteful stereotypes and even comparing the actions of the Nazis during the Holocaust to those of Jews in mandate Palestine'. The board also expressed 'grave concerns at historic [sic] inaccuracies', while Man Booker prize-winning author Howard Jacobson slammed it as a 'ludicrous piece of brainwashed prejudice'." (Mandate drama isn't very promising)
Why do I have this feeling that, even as I write, someone at SBS could already be copping flak over The Promise?
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The latest Weekend Australian Magazine has an article by John Lyon about the ill-treatment (including manacling), sometimes torture and lack of legal process of Palestinian children (mostly accused of stone throwing)caught up in the Israeli Army judicial system. Of note, was the refusal by the Australian ambassador to Israel to comment on this disturbing report. Perhaps someone at News Ltd is also copping flak?
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