Sunday 10 January 2010

Ross Kemp In Israel

Part 2 of Ross Kemp in the Middle East aired tonight, this time with Kemp investigating in Israel - speaking to victims of suicide bombers and rocket attacks, as well as extremist settlers.

Like in Part 1, the documentary appeared to be quite balanced and objective; however there were once again obvious flaws, and important issues ignored.

Of those I noticed last week, only one was addressed in this episode: the reason for the blockade/security fence, to prevent suicide bombings. This was still something that should have been mentioned in Part 1 to provide context, as in this episode he only referred to the West Bank fence, not the Gaza one. In fact, Kemp should have asked Palestinians what they think about the fact that the fence has drastically reduced suicide bombings and terror attacks in Israel.

There were two main flaws overall in the documentaries, and they're big ones.

The first is that Kemp spoke a lot about division in Israeli communities, and how this posed as an obstacle to peace negotiations; however he did not properly look into the divisions between Hamas and Fatah, and how they torture and kill each other.

The second is that Kemp seemed to equate the extremists on both sides, and claimed that hate on both sides is an obstacle to peace. Equating suicide bombers and Palestinian extremists who want every Jew dead, with Jewish settlers who are simply building shacks on hillposts is utterly ridiculous. As for hate, I did not see one Israeli in the programme say anything about hating the Palestinians or wanting them dead. The settlers in the programme may have seemed a little crazy, but their actions weren't physically hurting anyone.* Murder is much worse than robbery (especially robbery of the kind where you're taking back what you think belongs to you.)

Hatred on the other side, though, is a completely different story, and one that needs investigating. Like I pointed out last week, Kemp did not sufficiently investigate Hamas tyranny in Gaza, or look at the contents of their official charter. Most importantly, he did not look into the brainwashing of Palestinian children that takes place in their schools, or the intrinsic antisemitism they are taught by extremists in control of their education.

Still, I commend Ross Kemp for his efforts, and we can't expect him to do everything! At least he is one journalist who approached the situation in Israel with an open mind and the objective of being, well, objective. In that respect, his documentary is possibly groundbreaking.

Now we just need a documentary about Hamas, and perhaps when people see the truth about them, we can try to come up with a realistic solution to peace in Israel rather than hypothetical talks with terrorists who don't want to talk and just want to kill.


*I am aware that there are settlers who have attacked Palestinians, but the ones Ross Kemp was referring to were not violent.
If I'm being totally objective, perhaps Kemp could have looked into allegations of crimes the settlers have comitted, but I doubt he would have found out anything much. The Palestinians accuse the Israelis of a lot of things that aren't true.

15 comments:

  1. Well, "Proud Zionist," had you paid attention you would have realised that in the first part of the Documentary, he does talk about divisions betweeen Hamas and Fatah.
    What's more. you say you "did not see one Israeli in the programme say anything about hating the Palestinians or wanting them dead". Clearly you missed the hysteriacl woman who couldn't control herself at the end of the second part.
    Operation Cast-Lead was proof that the Israeli government have killed more than all terrorists of Palestine put together. Of course it is sad that 24 Civillians from Israel were killed. But over 4000 Palestinians? That shows Israel breaking International Law and the premises for a just war (proportional force).
    The settlers and their "Queen" showed in the programme were admitting to breaking the Fourth Geneava Convention by occupying land that wasn't theirs, and supporting the disgusting War criminal Sharon.
    Oh, and your name here is disgusting for one who preaches pro-Israel rants. There is nothing more damaging to Israel, and indeed the world, than Zionism.

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  2. Did he talk about Hamas throw Fatah members off the rooftops? Did he look into how Fatah torture Hamas members in their jails? No.
    The woman at the end did not say that she hates the Palestinians, but that they hate the Jews, which is mostly true.
    If you want to compare numbers, then look at the intent to kill over 8000 Israelis with each of those rockets that have been fired over the years. Israel never deliberately targetted Palestinian civilians, but those 8000+ rockets were targetted at Israeli civilians.
    Like I said, you can't compare "stealing" land to murder. And Sharon gave up Gaza, what did Israel get in return?
    "For one who preaches pro-Israel rants", I think my name is quite fitting actually. And if it weren't for Zionism, there would be no Israel and no Jews. But maybe that's what you want, I don't know.

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  3. Great post!


    I've given up expecting anything on British TV to be fair towards Israel.

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  4. it is sites like this one that kill and stop peace

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  5. proudzionist! you make me sick! if it wasnt for GOD, there would be no Jews....not Zionism! Idiot!

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  6. Anonymous 2, you are quite right, but I was just defending Zionism and Israel here. I am a religious Jew myself but if you're not interested in discussing Israel and Zionism then I suggest you go to a blog about religion.

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  7. Some really intelligent and thoughtful comments here I see from your "anonymous" readers.

    Thanks for a great post PZ, I'll share it on Twitter.

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  8. Proud Zionist. That name is foul. I'd sooner be a proud Nazi. At least they didn't pretend that they weren't mass murderers.

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  9. Thanks Matt, it's nice to see my blog doesn't just attract crazies!

    And Anonymous, how many times are you going to go on about my name? The reason I call myself is that is because people like you hate it so much, and the word Zionist needs to be used more in a good, proud, context. What have I said on this blog that advocates "mass murder"? Let me make it clear: I don't.

    So there you have it, there is such thing as a Zionist who doesn't support the murder of innocent Palestinians. In fact most Zionists don't.

    And despite the boycott against Israeli produce, I will go out especially and buy fruit made by Palestinians - (on Israeli settlers' farms, but the Palestinians will benefit too!)

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  10. How will the palestinians benefit from fruit being produced on lands they do not control and cannot profit from?

    And as for further investigation into the actions of Hamas and Fatah, you claim that the settlers are "harmless", yet it is obvious that if a palestinian as much as dared enter a settlement he or she would be immediatly shot, the crimes of Israel are so great that they easily dwarf anything of Hamas and Fatah by comparison.

    Yes Hamas is guilty of injustices but its difficult to leave time to investigate those, it takes so long just to review what Israel has done in one year let alone the past 60.

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  11. I'm the Anonymous who had issue with your name. You probably know more about Zionism than I do, so I ask you a question: Do Zionists believe that Israel is holy land for them and no one else? I get this idea because that's what the "Settlement Queen" said in Ross Kemp's rather good decumentary.

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  12. Oh, I have more than one hostile anonymous commenter! You both talk exactly the same!
    I believe that Israel is the Jewish homeland, but I also know that it is important to other religions. (although Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koran), so I don't believe that it should only be Jews who live there, just the majority.
    I am only against a 2-state-solution as long as a Palestinian entity would be a threat to Israel. If gving away land to the Palestinians would be a guarantee of peace in the region, then I would be all for it, but as we saw with Gaza and Hamas, that isn't the case, so I believe that a Palestinian state would be extremely dangerous for Israel's existence - unless it is under the conditions stated by Netanyahu.

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  13. proud zionist.....i just want to know why be so proud of being a zionist...and who has started this unjust war....and is it that you hate muslims ....

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  14. There are several meanings to the word Zionist, but for me it just means supporting Israel. I'm proud to be Jewish and I'm proud to be a supporter of Israel. I'm not a blind supporter though, I acknowledge when Israel makes mistakes. However most of the bad things people hear about Israel are lies perpetuated by the media, some of which I expose in my posts.

    Israel is the Jewish homeland, whoever has tried to take that away from us (numerous Arab countries) are the ones that have started the wars. Look at Iran, we're not trying to take over, Ahmadinejad is threatening Israel because he hates Jews.

    I absolutely do not hate Muslims. I just wish that the moderate ones would be more vocal about the deeper problems the Palestinians have, in their leadership and ideologies. There is a big problem in that many people hate Israel more than they care about the Palestinians. If they did they would see that the Palestinians' biggest enemy is themselves, not Israel. The moderate Palestinians, and their supporters, need to tell the extremists that rockets and terrorism is not the answer. If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't need the security fence and checkpoints.

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  15. I wonder what your thoughts are on a trip I took to Israel last year. I missed Kemp's programme because I was in Afghanistan at the time, as a British soldier, but spent a couple of weeks in Israel on holiday out of much the same motivation as Kemp: everybody thinks they know about Israel as its always in the news, but nobody really understands anything about it.

    charliecharlieone.blogspot.com

    Cheers,

    George

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