Whilst on the face of it it seemed quite a balanced documentary, there were flaws, including:
-no mention or investigation of the smuggling of weapons through the tunnels into Egypt (he didn't go further than asking one man about arms, who replied - looking quite shifty - "I don't know")
-no mention of why there is a blockade (to prevent suicide bombings) or Egypt's role in it
-no mention of the fact that Israel delivers tonnes of aid into Gaza, or that Hamas sometimes steals the aid
-not sufficient investigation into Hamas control and tyranny in Gaza (he spoke to a policeman, but didn't speak to Palestinian victims of Hamas terror, only victims of Israel's war); or why Hamas doesn't do more to help it's people
-no mention of the Hamas charter or the real reasons behind extremism (Kemp's concluding comments on the episode suggested that despair from the war is what drives extremism, but did address the comments made by a would-be suicide bomber that Islam commands martyrdom for the sake of Allah, or words to that effect.)Whilst I am not expecting Kemp to investigate Hamas' war crimes, when a charge is made by UNRWA director John Ging that "buildings of peace" were destroyed, perhaps then would be a good time to mention at least that Israel says Hamas uses those buildings to store weapons, and launch rockets from - or else show the evidence .
However, that was only one half of the documentary, and hopefully most of the above issues will be addressed in the last episode next week.
Also, Kemp does deserve a lot of credit for his efforts in exposing the type of terrorists that Israel is dealing with.
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Don't hold yout breath.
ReplyDeleteI thought on the whole this was a very fair and balanced programme. I'm sure that it will generate a lot of complaints from people on the other side of the fence to us - I've already read accusations of Ross Kemp being a "Zionist stooge".
ReplyDeleteOne other thing that bothered me was that Mr Kemp described the violence in Gaza as resulting from Israel's creation in 1948. Anyone familiar with the history of the conflict would know that Gaza was invaded by Egypt in 1948 who held onto it for 19 years, so I'm not sure how Israel can be blamed for the situation.
All in all I thought this was a brave and hard-hitting documentary which showed both sides of the conflict.