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Is this anti-Semitic?

Is this anti-Semitic?

  • Yes and the show should be banned

    Votes: 3 6.8%

  • Yes but free speech should be paramount

    Votes: 4 9.1%

  • No, it's not anti-Semitic at all

    Votes: 27 61.4%

  • Zionist bankers are controlling my mind

    Votes: 10 22.7%
  • Total voters
    44
Brainache said:
SBS used to be about promoting cultural diversity, but ever since Shaun Brown took over as Boss, its main emphasis has been making profit. I was present at a meeting (I worked at SBS from 1989 to 2005) where Mr Brown told us he was getting rid of non-English language programs from the weeknight schedule because they didn't rate highly enough.

Mr Brown's decision to allow ad-breaks during shows is also a breach of SBS's charter, but no one seems motivated enough to stop it.

He isn't in charge there any more, but the new Boss doesn't seem to be any better.

Re this particular program; I haven't seen it, but I suspect what others have said. There is a number of people out there who label anything that doesn't praise Israel uncritically as anti-semitic.

I remember reading comments from viewers about our Middle East news coverage and being amazed at how the same news item could be perceived as Pro-Israel by some and as Anti-Semitic by others.

Funny old world.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the insight.

AngrySoba - not sure, found it on another forum but will look into it. Sorry about the spoilers, didn't even think about prefacing it with a warning!
 
'sokay.

Thinking about starting to watch it tonight. (I don't expect such insights into my life to be interesting. Jus' sayin' like.)

ETA: The irony is that I never would have even known about this series let alone thought about watching it until so much fuss was made of it. This is not the first time I have heard that it might be "biased" although clearly the usual criticisms of it are not to say it is as bad as Jud Suss.
 
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I've just watched the first episode and I think it was really good.

It's actually two stories, that of a British woman (Erin) who goes to Israel with her friend who has joined the IDF and that of the same woman's grandfather whose diary she serendipitously discovers when she's cleaning out the old man's house.

Her grandfather was a British para who served in Palestine during the British Mandate and as she reads his diary it flashes back to 1945-1947.

I can't agree with the charge of "anti-semitism", although I do think it perhaps unfortunately uses a few terms that are sometimes seen as such. (When Erin says her friend is part of the IDF, Erin's mum looks puzzled - "I thought she was English." "She's a dual national." I would think that simply saying she is also Israeli would be a more usual thing to say. A bit picky, perhaps, but these are terms that sometimes go off like dog-whistles.)

That said, the drama itself was genuinely interesting and intelligent. I thought it was more "equivocal" rather than anti-Israel. The British, for example, are not seen in a particularly good light and at one point an attack by Irgun terrorists is rationalized by a British soldier as revenge for British aggression against a Jewish protest. The Jews themselves are being shown rounded up into transit camps by the British soldiers as soon as they arrive in Palestine and all this happens shortly after some horrific archive footage of the Nazi concentration camps.

Presumably, Erin's story in Israel is supposed to mirror this with the Israelis now in command and their own heavy-handed actions being responded to with suicide bombings and Palestinian terrorism. But it goes beyond being merely simplistic. Erin's friend's family is seen in a very sympathetic light as liberals who hope that Israel's democratic institutions will win the day, except for the radical anti-Zionist brother who sees Israel as a military dictatorship.

I wasn't sure how to interpret the climax of the first episode but it seems to be ironic given that the brother has just been lecturing why the security barrier has nothing to do with Israel's security.

So far I am enjoying it. On to part two...
 
I watched the second part.

I also think it was very good. It's interesting that the Palestinians themselves in the Erin part of the series (2000s) tend to say "The Jews" instead of the more PC "The Israelis". I think that seems to be more realistic that it would have its characters saying that and although their attitudes may seem anti-semitic the show itself isn't. In my humble opinion.

The 1940s sections also doesn't paint the British in a particularly good light. Wherever they go they are spoken of by the Jews as Nazis and sometimes the British seem to act that way too blundering around causing offence and resentment to both the Jews and the Arabs.

One particularly good storytelling device in the show is the radio broadcasts of a Jewish woman's voice coldly denouncing the British and justifying Irgun violence. In the 2000s scenes a veteran of the Irgun is also seen justifying his actions against the British as simply necessary for the survival of the Jews.


It is still pretty equivocal and it has very believable and recognizable voices and compelling arguments for each side.
 
Watched Part Three now. This is an excellent drama, I think. Very poignant and troubling.

There's also a pretty amusingly uncomfortable dinner.

My only criticism so far is not that is too one-sided but in fact that the Palestinians (2000s) and the Arabs (1940s) are very cardboard. Usually portrayed as docile victims without much thought or ingenuity of their own.

There's only one Arab character that's fleshed out properly.
 
Well, I watched the final part and unfortunately I was not as impressed as with the previous episodes.

The questions and previous ambiguity seemed to resolve itself into a pretty one-sided impression of the Jews being a monolithically bad group.

Some of the simplistic narratives that had been avoided for most of the series seemed to spring up at the end with the the good British solider playing the role of the observing embodied conscience deciding that while he had once believed the Jews should have been given a homeland, because of what they had been through, he now thinks he's not too sure and that they, of all people, shouldn't have behaved as they do. With these events being paralleled in modern day Israel and Erin playing the role of the embodied conscience it seems that her granddad's condemnation of the Jews goes for Israel too.


It is not virulently anti-Semitic in the way that Jud Suss was. That is obviously ridiculously hyperbolic. Yet there is some comparatively mild anti-semitism in there. Jewish characters who had previously been liberal, anti-Zionist or naive and apolitical such as Eliza's dad, Paul and Eliza herself suddenly become, at bottom, just like all the others. This is what I took from the fourth episode anyway.
In the 1940s sections the two main women both turn out to be evil femmes fatales.


I can certainly see how that can be found objectionable.

One example of what I thought was a bit of a heavy-handed Jews/Israelis are evil was near the end:

When Erin finds the daughter of Mohammed she explains that her brother had been shot by the Jews. Then the Israelis arrive at the same time to remove her from her death bed and demolish her house. It's just a little bit too much, in my humble opinion.


Most of the events probably did happen in the 1940s parts and similar actions probably happen to those depicted in modern Israel but some of the narrative was rather manipulative, I thought.

Certainly viewers don't come away with the impression that fleabeetle's uncle did. The Arabs are like the innocent and pacifist Eloi of H.G Wells' Time Machine belatedly driven to a tragically inept if brave self-defence.
 
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