Last night’s television provided one of the viewing highlights of the week for me, as well as one of the lowlights.
Highlight – The Ambassador
Israel’s version of The Apprentice, which I have mentioned here and here, delivers the goods. I watched the second episode last night, and was pretty much hooked.
Last night, the men and women were sent to France. Their task was to sell to French people holiday packages to Eilat! Talk about a hard-sell. Surprisingly, both teams combined managed to sell tickets to 23 people. The men were more innovative – one of the men walked around in freezing conditions wearing only shorts, snorkel and mask! The women had more sex appeal on their side, but their internal bickering may have worked against them.
The thing I really like about the show is that no matter which individual wins, Israel wins in the end. My main criticism of the show is the annoying and unnecessary narrative. We can see what is happening..we don’t need you to tell us! Also, why does the losing team have to fly back to Israel to face the boardroom (where one member is fired)? Isn’t that a waste of money? Why can’t they remain in the country in which they are, have their meeting there (perhaps as a video conference), and then the fired person only returns to Israel? Just a thought.
In any event, I am sure Harry will have a far more detailed synopsis of the episode for you. After all, he promised.
Update: Harry is a man of his word.
Lowlight – The Agency
Later on in the evening, I watched a show called The Agency, which deals with the CIA. This was my first time watching this show – and the last. The only reason I watched it to begin with was because the story was based in Israel, and I was interested in seeing how the Israeli and PLO Arab sides would be portrayed. The show’s treatment of the conflict here not only disappointed me, but also insulted me.
Without going into the entire plot, my complaints about the episode are many:
- The Israeli Mossad agent is depicted as gruff and rude, compared to the PLO Arab general who is depicted more sympathetically.
- The conflict is portrayed as a “cycle-of-violence.”
- The PA and their security forces are depicted as genuine about wanting peace and reigning in terrorists, as opposed to the reality of them being complicit in terror.
- The Israelis are shown to be less willing to cooperate with the PLO Arabs than vice versa.
- The PLO Arab youth involved in the terror attack that occurs in the episode are portrayed as poor, unemployed, and desperate. The writers clearly want the viewers to feel sympathy for them.
- At one point, a clearly terrified PLO Arab boy accused of involvement in the attack is interrogated by the Mossad agent. The agent tells the CIA agents to leave the room. There is a clear implication that the Mossad is going to beat the truth out of the boy.
- As it turns out, the terror attack is a joint Hamas-Israeli settler effort! I kid you not. While Hamas plant the bomb, the Israeli settlers – a female school teacher and a male furniture maker – are the ones who make the explosives. The reason for this unlikely collaboration? Both groups are opposed to the peace process.
- At the end of the day, this episode promotes the view that extremists on both sides are equally responsible for the deadlock in peace negotiations. Religious settlers are placed in the same category as PLO Arab terrorists, despite the fact that these dedicated Jews do not generally go around murdering innocent people.
Clearly, this episode is a biproduct of the ridiculous notion of “even-handedness”, to which Hollywood subscribes. No longer can Arabs be portrayed as terrorists, without also showing some Jews who have no compunctions about killing. But notice that this “political correctness” only works one way. While the writers of the episode were treading carefully around its portray of the PLO Arabs, they were more than willing to show the “rude” and ‘stubborn” Israelis.
I must admit to some satisfaction knowing that The Agency was axed last year.
