British television viewers are currently being treated to a 4-part dramatised lesson in the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. And so far, there has been virtually none of the knee-jerk complaints of anti-Israeli and even anti-Jewish bias usually levelled at such programmes by over-sensitive elements in the Jewish community. After the first two almost two-hour long episodes of Channel 4s The Promise, which has two interlinked story linesa British soldiers experience in Mandate Palestine between 1945 and 1948 and his granddaughters exploration of that experience when she visits Israel in 2005television critics have largely been impressed. And this is a series that tackles head-on the most controversial aspects of the conflict.
No one could say that resentment against Israel and Jews because of the actions of the Jewish terrorist groups in the last years of the Mandate is a live issue in Britain today. In Israelalthough I havent tested this recentlyI suspect the reverse isnt quite true. There are many close ties between the UK and Israel, many things that Israelis admire about British politics, culture and society, but scratch the surface and lingering anger and bitterness at what older Israelis in particular regard as Britains perfidy in preventing Jewish immigration into Palestine and reneging on its commitment to facilitate the building of a national home for the Jews can soon surface.
Where anger, or at least very mixed emotions, may still prevail is among the dwindling number of British soldiers who served in Palestine. And it was one such soldier who wrote to the acclaimed television film director Peter Kosminsky telling him that no one remembers or talks about the 100,000 military personnel who were based in Palestine between 1945 and 1948. Kosminsky, whose grandfather was Jewish, has made films about British soldiers in Bosnia, the Falklands War and the conflict in Northern Ireland, so it was no surprise that he was prompted to investigate further and come up with a treatment that would draw parallels between those post-war years and modern times.
-snip- That such a major and challenging seriesin which the Israeli characters are drawn sympathetically and realistically, with not a hint of demonizationappears on one of the countrys mass audience television channels and is positively received throws an interesting light on what I believe are grossly exaggerated claims that London is the hub of international efforts to delegitimize Israel and that British Jews are subject to a constant barrage of media-driven anti-Zionist propaganda that borders on, or overlaps with, antisemitism. The film shows that major figures in the arts, often seen (but not necessarily correctly) as very left-wing, can present the Israel-Palestine conflict in a balanced way; and that when this is done audiences respond in a fair-minded fashion. The fact is that a substantial majority of people in the UK know very little about the conflict, past or present, and Kosminsky accurately reflects this in the central character, Erin.
Sadly, its the propagandists and shrill voices on all sides who grab most public attention, and its in their interests to oversimplify the arguments, even while disingenuously paying lip-service to the complexity of the issues. But in the last year or so, partly influenced by the significant emergence of much more even-handed attitudes among some pro-Israel leaders of the Jewish community, a more nuanced tone has perhaps crept into the public debate about Israel-Palestine. Kosminskys series is a contribution to that more reflective atmosphere and this is something Britains Jews should warmly welcome.
