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[[Arte]] is expected to show the series in 2012.
[[Arte]] is expected to show the series in 2012.
==Australia==
===Australia===
A complaint was made to the SBS television network in early 2012 about the screening of the series at the end of 2011, by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), claiming that the series "Unrelentingly portrays the entire Jewish presence throughout the country, including modern-day Israel, as an act of usurpation by Jews who, without exception, are aliens, predators and thieves and who enforce their usurpation by brutal, racist policies akin to those inflicted by the Nazis upon the Jewish people" <ref> [http://ecaj.org.au/news_files/120105_the_promise.pdf ECAJ complaint to SBS regarding ''The Promise''] </ref>. The ECAJ has called for a halt to sales of the DVD of the series while the complaint is investigated.
A complaint was made to the SBS television network in early 2012 about the screening of the series at the end of 2011, by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), claiming that the series "Unrelentingly portrays the entire Jewish presence throughout the country, including modern-day Israel, as an act of usurpation by Jews who, without exception, are aliens, predators and thieves and who enforce their usurpation by brutal, racist policies akin to those inflicted by the Nazis upon the Jewish people" <ref> [http://ecaj.org.au/news_files/120105_the_promise.pdf ECAJ complaint to SBS regarding ''The Promise''] </ref> . The ECAJ rejected in its complaint the relevance or validity of the British OfCom inquiry. The ECAJ has also called for a halt to sales of the DVD of the series while the complaint is investigated <ref>[http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/sbs-fields-complaints-over-series-set-in-israel-20120116-1q37z.html 17 January 2012]</ref>. The ECAJ position has been given considerable coverage in the Australian Jewish News which headlined the complaint as "TV series “The Promise” akin to Nazi propaganda" <ref>[http://www.jewishnews.net.au/tv-series-the-promise-akin-to-nazi-propaganda/24212 13 January 2012]</ref>. In contrast, Australians for Palestine has been strongly supportive of the series <ref>[http://www.australiansforpalestine.net/57154]</ref>.


According to other reports, the matter is also to be investigated in the Australian Senate in February 2012. Another opinion expressed by the Australian Jewish Democratic Society has said that "in our view The Promise is a worthwhile contribution to the debates about the intractable conflict". Other debate over the series has been caried out, for example, on the Australian Broadcasting Commission public opinion site, The Drum.
According to other reports, the matter is also to be investigated in the Australian Senate in mid-February 2012 <ref> [www.jwire.com.au/news/the-promise-the-ecaj-voices-concern-about-dvd-launch The Promise Jwire 16 January 2012]</ref>. Another opinion expressed by the Australian Jewish Democratic Society has criticized the EJAC approach, saying that "in our view The Promise is a worthwhile contribution to the debates about the intractable conflict" <ref> [http://ajds.org.au/node/454]</ref>. Other debate over the series has been caried out, for example, on the Australian Broadcasting Commission public opinion site, The Drum <ref> [http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3778466.html ABC Unleashed 17 January 2012]</ref>.

The Australian Jewish Democratic Society also made available the full text of the OfCom decision as a contribution to open public debate. Prior to this release only parts had been available in the ECAJ submission or in the media.[http://ajds.org.au/node/457]</ref>
==See also==
==See also==
* [[British-Zionist conflict]]
* [[British-Zionist conflict]]

Revision as of 12:06, 20 January 2012

The Promise
Serial DVD cover
GenreDrama
Period drama
Written byPeter Kosminsky
Directed byPeter Kosminsky
StarringClaire Foy
Christian Cooke
Itay Tiran
Katharina Schüttler
Haaz Sleiman

ComposerDebbie Wiseman
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes4
Production
Executive producerDavid Aukin
ProducerHal Vogel
CinematographyDavid Higgs
EditorDavid Blackmore
Running time81, 87, 83 and 105 minutes
Original release
NetworkChannel 4
Release6 February –
27 February 2011

The Promise is a British television serial in four episodes written and directed by Peter Kosminsky, with music by Debbie Wiseman, which premiered on 6 February 2011 on Channel 4. It deals with a young woman going to Israel/Palestine in the present day, using her visit to investigate her soldier grandfather's part in the post-war phase of the British Mandate of Palestine.

Cast

Subjects depicted in the serial

Plot

Production

Research

The seed of the idea for The Promise came about in the wake of the 1999 drama Warriors, Kosminsky's sympathetic portrayal of British troops trying to carry through a peacekeeping mission in central Bosnia in 1992–93, their hands tied by an impossible mandate. A former soldier wrote to the programme's executive producer Jane Tranter at the BBC,[11] complimenting her on the drama, before adding "You should do a film about the British soldiers who were in Palestine. No one remembers us."[12]

Tranter passed the letter to Kosminsky, who initially put it to one side. However, after completing The Project in 2002, Kosminsky presented the subject to the BBC as a possible theme for a future drama, and the BBC agreed to support research on it. The BBC's Sarah Barton, subsequently assisted by Sarah MacFarlane, began making contacts through regimental groups and the Palestine Veterans Association; then by telephone interviews and finally face-to-face, also attending the veterans' annual reunion at Eden Camp and slowly gaining their collective confidence; ultimately conducting detailed interviews with 82 veterans,[13] some of them in their eighties, many of them speaking about things they had never felt able to tell even their wives and families.[14] Many of the interviews were spread over several days, and some ran to hundreds of pages. At the same time, the oral accounts were compared with archive material from books and records of the Red Cross, the The National Archives and the Imperial War Museum, including the full run of weekly military intelligence situation digests. As the research continued, Kosminsky was particularly struck by the house demolitions carried out by the British, and began to wonder what other parallels that might exist with the present; so towards the end of this phase the research team also made contact with newly-emerging groups of critical IDF veterans, Breaking the Silence and Combatants for Peace. According to Kosminsky, it took him 11 months simply to read all the research, including transcripts, archives, diaries, military reports and over 40 books that the researchers had prepared for him, while thinking how to distill it into a workable dramatic form.[14][15]

Characters and construction

Rather than aiming to present the totality of events in 1946-48, Kosminsky says that his overriding aim for the drama was to present the experience of the 100,000 British soldiers who served in Palestine in the period,[14][15] "to remind us all of what happened".[16] After the exit from Palestine nobody had wanted to remember.[13][17] The veterans had been "shunned"; they had "returned home to find the nation that wanted nothing to do with them", with no memorial, and been denied even "the right to march to the Cenotaph in formation".[18] At the same time most of them had found it incredibly hard to talk about their experiences.[13] "I was determined that their story be told."[19] This was always his aim for the drama, to "honour the original letter sent to the BBC", so this was always going to be the path of Len's journey.[14] Overwhelmingly, the veterans told a similar story: they had started out "incredibly pro-Jewish";[12] but, almost to a man, they had shifted their allegiance and by the end of their stay "were feeling a great deal of sympathy for the Arabs".[20] "A big change came in the final months, as they saw what would happen to the Palestinians, and realised both sides were to be abandoned to a war."[14] "It was always going to be necessary for us to faithfully reflect this in our drama,"[20] "I either had to reflect it or abandon the project."[21] The series was led by what had come out of the interviews, what the soldiers had said and felt, and what they had actually experienced,[22] rather than things such as British higher policy calculations, or the activities of the Haganah, with which the rank-and-file veterans had had little contact.[15] Of all the subsequent reactions to the series, according to Kosminsky what had meant the most to him was a letter from a veteran, now 85 years old: "You did what you said you would. Thank you so much."[14]

The character of Erin was influenced by his two teenage daughters, one of whom has epilepsy. Kosminsky felt the trait wasn't often shown on screen unless it was a major plot point, so he liked the idea of showing "an eighteen-year old girl who is trying to live a normal life, despite the fact she occasionally had epileptic fits; and how other people cope with that as well".[23] For personal reasons, Kosminsky had long wanted to explore the idea of a young person gradually coming to appreciate "the young man inside the shell of an older, sick man",[20][24] to the extent that he sees the drama as an unconventional love story,[25] capped when Paul tells Erin that the young Len of the diary no longer exists. Erin's passionate response, "He does to me, he does to me!" was for Kosminsky perhaps the most important line in the whole film.[14][20] The casual relationship Erin has with Eliza, "the way they talk, the way they react, their limited attention span" was very much drawn from his experience of his daughters and their friends;[26] and he felt that the combination of naivety and flinty assertiveness were not atypical of an "eighteen-year-old kid from London", particularly given an emotionally rather unsympathetic upbringing.[20] Dramatically, it was also important to make the character contrast with the "endlessly heroic and gentlemanly"[20] Len. So it was intentional that initially she should be harder to like (though perhaps not the reaction from Twitter that she was impossible to like).[14] However, he hoped that the audience would be won over as they came to better know the character, and that initially undercutting her in this way and having the audience make this journey would make more powerful what he saw as her bravery and single-mindedness in the later episodes.[20]

Erin's emotional journey intentionally parallels the 1940s arc, because at the heart of it is her increasing engagement with Len.[14] "She becomes obsessed with him... she feels what he's feeling... so, by the time we get to Gaza, she patterns herself on what she thinks he would have done."[14] Through the modern story, Kosminsky says that he wants to show how the past can have consequences for the present, and that having left "chaos, political confusion, bloodshed and war", Britain has a responsibility for what happens today. "It is our problem, at least in part, and we should take some responsibility for it".[13][27] Coupled with this he writes that what has struck him most is a question: "How did we get from there to here?" In 1945 the Jewish plight had the sympathy of most of the world, but "just 60 years later, Israel is isolated, loathed and feared in equal measure by its neighbours, finding little sympathy outside America for its uncompromising view of how to defend its borders and secure its future. How did Israel squander the compassion of the world within a lifetime?" This is what The Promise sets out to explore.[27] But he is not offering any easy answers: rather he seeks to make more understandable and human the complexity of the situation. "It does not help anyone by claiming that good and justice are on one side only. If it were that simple, we would have already found a solution. There are rights and truths on each side, that compete with each other. You can not have everything on one side or the other, everything is meshed together"[13] ... "There are no good guys and bad guys in this sad situation and we have tried very hard to show pluses and minuses on both sides."[20] "I would be very sad if someone were to consider the series as partisan."[17] But rather than present an impossible perfect balance, what he hoped to create in the drama was more a kind of unstable equilibrium, so that audiences would find their sympathies shifting, repeatedly, from one side to the other.[13]

Pre-production, further research, and finance

As of 2006 the project had the working title Palestine and was slated to be made for the BBC through Carnival Films,[28] best known as makers of the Poirot series for ITV. However, Kosminsky had grown increasingly estranged from the BBC, later saying that film-makers no longer saw "that flash of mischief" when pitching ideas.[29] "I don't think we can say the BBC bottled it... [However] it seems to have lost its nerve for making challenging drama... drama that gets it into political and legal hot water."[30] The BBC agreed to sell its interest and let the project go into turnaround — for a generously low rate according to Kosminsky[14] — and in 2007 Kosminsky entered into an exclusive deal with Daybreak Pictures,[31] run by Channel 4's former head of film David Aukin, with whom he had previously made The Government Inspector (2005) and Britz (2007).

At this stage the project existed as a detailed treatment which ran to 180 pages, with many scenes described in considerable detail. Several researchers continued to conduct interviews, looking for telling details to further enrich particular aspects of the story. Kosminsky also flew to Israel with David Aukin, where they were able to visit the real-life places that would be featured in the story, including the normally closed-off Deir Yassin, accompanied each day by a different modern Israeli historian specialising in the period, organised by their Israeli pre-production partners, an Israeli documentary film company. Benny Morris let Kosminsky read a pre-publication proof copy of his book 1948; and from a recent PhD student of Motti Golani at Haifa University Kosminsky heard about the city hospitality clubs, still sixty years on a stigmatised subject, which shaped the background for Clara in the story.[14][32] Scripts followed quickly, and by mid-2008 Channel 4 publicly announced its backing for the project.[33]

Daybreak had initially costed the drama at £8 million, which with some trimming of a few scenes they had been able to pare back to £7 million. Channel 4 committed £4 million to the budget, roughly in line with the channel's hourly rate for prestige drama. Other sources of funding were more difficult. In France, a deal giving Canal + first-run subscription broadcast rights, with free-to-air rights on ARTE a year later, was negotiated by Daybreak's long-standing existing production contact Georges Campana, bringing in a further £1 million. SBS (a frequent co-producer with ARTE) secured Australian rights, and some top-up funding was obtained from the E.U. media fund. However pre-sale negotiations for America and Germany, while cordial, proved slow, and finally ran into the sand. Eventually, having put back filming from an original autumn 2009 intended start, and with everything else in place and ready to go, Kosminsky went back to Channel 4 and laid it on the line – without another £1 million the series simply wasn't going to happen. Exceptionally, Channel 4 gave the extra funding the green light, and filming finally started in Israel in early 2010 under the revised title Homeland, beginning with the period scenes set at Stella Maris.[14] Channel 4 presented its support as part of a £20 million investment in drama, also including This is England '86 and Any Human Heart, made possible by cancellation of the £50 million per series it was previously spending on Big Brother.[34]

Filming

The serial was filmed entirely in Israel, with a predominantly Israeli crew and through Israeli production company Lama Films; something very unusual for a UK television drama production. According to Kosminsky the team also looked at Morocco, Cyprus, Southern Spain and Tunisia, and could have recreated the 1940s sequences there; but nowhere else would have replicated the "buildings, range of cultures or topography" of modern-day Israel.[35] The early scene of the flat in Leeds was created in an Israeli studio.[36] Everything else was shot on location in and around Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Caesarea, Acre, Givat Brenner, Ein Hod, Peqi'in, Ramla and Beit Gemal[37] in a 68 day schedule involving 180 separate different locations.[35] Ben Gurion Airport stood in for Heathrow,[38] and the bombed rubble of the King David Hotel was filmed against a blue screen in a car park in Petach Tikva.[18] Part of the Old City in Jerusalem stood in for Nablus in the West Bank,[39] the Hebron-set scenes were filmed in Acre,[12] while Gaza was represented by Jisr al-Zarqa, "reputed to be the poorest town in Israel" according to Kosminsky.[20] The paratroopers' base at Stella Maris had been a challenge to find, but eventually the monastery at Beit Gemal was used and proved very accommodating.[40] Period military vehicles were also a challenge to source without shipping them in at prohibitive expense; the tracked armoured vehicle used in the series was an amalgam of parts from five different vehicles found in a junkyard, cobbled together into one that worked.[41]

Filming used conventional Super 16mm film, which was then processed and edited in England. The cinematographer, David Higgs, had been keen to try the new Red One high resolution digital camera. However, the team were concerned by potentially limited contrast ratio using digital – a serious consideration in the strong Mediterranean light; and that its potential bulkiness might inhibit Kosminsky's trademark extensive use of hand-held camera to follow the action. It was also felt that relying on comparatively simple well-known technology would be a good idea when operating so far from home.[42] Ironically, however, the reliance on film led to a number of scenes having to be re-mounted after film fogging went undetected for a whole week when it was impossible to get daily film rushes back to London because of the air travel disruption caused by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland.[43] Extensive use was also made of CGI and digital post-production, which was by no means limited to the café explosion, the destruction at the King David Hotel, and the refugee ship of would-be immigrants.[44] A particular challenge was how to realise the events at Bergen-Belsen. The film-makers considered and rejected a number of options, including live-action and CGI, before reluctantly deciding to fall back on archive black-and-white library footage provided by the Imperial War Museum in London, only to come to the view that the resulting sequence had more artistic and moral power than anything they might ever have been able to create in its stead.[45]

Reception

United Kingdom

Overnight ratings for The Promise were 1.8 million for the first episode, followed by 1.2 million, 1.3 million, and 1.2 million viewers for the three remaining episodes.[46] Consolidated ratings, which include time-shifted and online viewing, generally added approximately 0.5 million to these overnight figures.

The first episode was reviewed widely and generally received a very positive initial notice,[47] although Andrew Anthony in The Observer[48] was more critical and A.A. Gill, writing in the The Sunday Times, was unimpressed.[49] The Daily Express called it “...a little burning bush of genius in the desert of well-intentioned TV dramas...”, The Daily Telegraph said the programme would richly deserve any Baftas that came its way, and Caitlin Moran in The Times called it "almost certainly the best drama of the year".[47] By the second episode Andrew Billen, writing in The Times, was concerned that both Len and Erin were meeting from the Arabs a "little too much kindness for the comfort of all of us hoping that Kosminsky will parcel out recriminations in exactly equal proportions"; but nonetheless applauded the "immersive and emotional" quality of the series.[50]

The serial as a whole was praised by Christina Patterson in The Independent who said it was “...beautifully shot and extremely well written. It is also extremely balanced...”;[51] and Rachel Cooke in the New Statesman[52] and The Observer, where she said it was “...the best thing you are likely to see on TV this year, if not this decade.” [12] There was also praise from Stephen Kelly in Tribune,[53] Harriet Sherwood and Ian Black, Jerusalem correspondent and Middle East editor of The Guardian respectively,[54] and David Chater, previewing the serial for The Times, who called it courageous and applauded its lack of didacticism.[55]

London free newspaper Metro felt that the third episode dragged, having warmly received the first two parts; but then praised the series as a whole.[56] Previewing the final episode, The Times said it was "ambitious" and "packs a considerable punch";[57] Time Out chose the programme as its pick of the day, and gave it a four-star recommendation, calling it "brave filmmaking and a brave, entirely successful commission".[58] Andrew Anthony in The Observer acknowledged some flaws, but found it still "an exceptional drama".[59]

A press attaché at the Israeli embassy in London, however, condemned the drama to The Jewish Chronicle as the worst example of anti-Israel propaganda he had ever seen on television, saying it "created a new category of hostility towards Israel".[60] The Zionist Federation and the Board of Deputies of British Jews both also lodged letters of complaint.[61] The Jewish Chronicle itself took the view that rather than "attempt to tell both sides of what is a complex and contentious story", the series had turned out to be "a depressing study in how to select historical facts to convey a politically loaded message".[62] Writing in The Independent, novelist Howard Jacobson said that in The Promise "Just about every Palestinian was sympathetic to look at, just about every Jew was not. While most Palestinians might fairly be depicted as living in poor circumstances, most Israeli Jews might not be fairly depicted as living in great wealth... Though I, too, have found Palestinians to be people of immense charm, I could only laugh in derision at The Promise every time another shot of soft-eyed Palestinians followed another shot of hard-faced Jews."[63] In an interview with Jacobson during Jewish Book Week 2011, Jonathan Freedland, having seen the first episode of The Promise, said Kosminsky used antisemitic tropes, misrepresenting Israel and Zionism as being a consequence of the Holocaust, whose imagery he had abused.[64] Historian, Professor David Cesarani, accused Kosminsky of "deceit...massive historical distortion": omitting the Balfour Declaration's promise of a Jewish national home; downplaying selfish British geo-strategy; and exculpating the British, "chief architects of the Palestine tragedy...making responsible...only the Jews"; turning a tricorn conflict of British, Arabs and Jews "into a one-sided rant."[65] On the other hand, Liel Leibovitz, writing for American online Jewish magazine Tablet, took the view that, "contrary to these howls of discontent, the show is a rare and riveting example of telling Israel’s story on screen with accuracy, sensitivity, and courage".[66]

The broadcasting regulator Ofcom received 44 complaints about the series, but Ofcom concluded in a 10-page report that the series did not breach its code of conduct.[67] Viewers complained that the drama, about British Mandate Palestine and its legacy, was antisemitic, used upsetting footage of concentration camps, incited racial hatred, was biased against Israel and presented historical inaccuracies. But, Ofcom said: "Just because some individual Jewish and Israeli characters were portrayed in a negative light does not mean the programme was, or was intended to be, antisemitic... Just as there were Jewish/Israeli characters that could be seen in a negative light, so there were British and Palestinian characters that could also be seen in a negative light."[67][68] Delivering his first keynote speech to the Royal Television Society in London on 23 May 2011, David Abraham, the Chief Executive of Channel 4, said: "At a time when other broadcasters are perhaps more conservative, it's more important than ever for Channel 4 to challenge the status quo, stimulate debate, take risks and be brave... I can think of no better example of how we continue to do that than in Peter Kosminsky's recent examination of the Israel/Palestine question in The Promise."[69]

The Promise was nominated for the British Academy Television Awards 2011 in the category of best drama serial[70] but was beaten by another production broadcast on Channel 4, the TV adaptation of William Boyd's Any Human Heart. Interviewed in The Jewish Chronicle, Any Human Heart's director, Michael Samuels, said about The Promise, "I respect it for having a point of view. You have to have that, otherwise you are not writing".[71]

The Promise also received a nomination, at the Banff World Television Festival, for Best Mini-Series of 2010/2011.[72] On 10 May 2011, at the One World Media Awards in London, The Promise won Best Drama of 2010/11.[73]

France

The subscription channel Canal+ aired the drama under the title The Promise: Le Serment over four weeks starting on 21 March 2011, in a prime-time Monday evening slot that it tends to use for more serious or historical drama series. Libération called it "admirable", praising the "excellent director" for telling a "tragedy in two voices", while "pointing the finger at neither one side nor the other".[74] Les Echos called it "exceptional, stunningly intelligent" and said the considered dialogue and tense, serious acting fully measured up to the ambition of the film.[75] TV magazine Télérama called it "remarkable", confronting its subject "head on".[76] Le Figaro said it was "magnificently filmed and masterfully acted... perfectly balanced... great television", and gave it a maximum rating of four stars out of four.[77] The Nouvel Obs and Le Journal du Dimanche both identified the series as reflecting the viewpoint of the "British pro-Palestinian left", but the latter praised it as "nevertheless a historical fiction useful for understanding an intractable conflict",[78] while the former commended its "epic spirit, rare on television".[79] Le Monde gave the series an enthusiastic preview in its TéléVisions supplement along with a lengthy interview with the director.[19] Le Point predicted Kosminsky would receive a "shower of awards...[a]nd also gibes".[80] However, La Croix's reviewer was more hostile, considering that although there was "no doubt that the film ought to be seen", it "cannot be mistaken for a history lesson but a great partisan fiction", marred by bias and an "embarrassing" representation of Jews".[81] L'Express considered it beautiful but too long.[82]

A letter of protest to the channel was written by the President of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), arguing that "the viewer sees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, however complex, only as a consequence of violence and cruelty of the Jews, who are represented as so extreme that if any empathy towards them is excluded." CRIF did not ask for the broadcast to be pulled, but rather to be balanced with a programme taking a different position, and for the fictional nature of the series to be made clear.[83] The Jewish Chronicle (The JC) reported that CRIF president Richard Prasquier had met the president of Canal+, Bertrand Meheut. Prasquier reportedly told him that such a series "could only fan the flames of antisemitic violence" and Meheut reportedly promised that viewers would be provided with balanced information about the issue; The JC reported that Canal+ had agreed to broadcast a caption reading "The Promise is fiction" before each episode.[84] The Confederation of French Jews and Friends of Israel (CJFAI) issued a call (publicised by CRIF) for a demonstration against the programme, which it described as "a vitriolic saga of murderous disinformation".[85] The demonstration in front of the Canal+ offices on the night of the first showing was reported to have attracted a few hundred people, with CRIF represented by its vice-president.[86] The Israeli embassy in Paris made no comment.[87]

Arte is expected to show the series in 2012.

Australia

A complaint was made to the SBS television network in early 2012 about the screening of the series at the end of 2011, by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), claiming that the series "Unrelentingly portrays the entire Jewish presence throughout the country, including modern-day Israel, as an act of usurpation by Jews who, without exception, are aliens, predators and thieves and who enforce their usurpation by brutal, racist policies akin to those inflicted by the Nazis upon the Jewish people" [88] . The ECAJ rejected in its complaint the relevance or validity of the British OfCom inquiry. The ECAJ has also called for a halt to sales of the DVD of the series while the complaint is investigated [89]. The ECAJ position has been given considerable coverage in the Australian Jewish News which headlined the complaint as "TV series “The Promise” akin to Nazi propaganda" [90]. In contrast, Australians for Palestine has been strongly supportive of the series [91].

According to other reports, the matter is also to be investigated in the Australian Senate in mid-February 2012 [92]. Another opinion expressed by the Australian Jewish Democratic Society has criticized the EJAC approach, saying that "in our view The Promise is a worthwhile contribution to the debates about the intractable conflict" [93]. Other debate over the series has been caried out, for example, on the Australian Broadcasting Commission public opinion site, The Drum [94].

The Australian Jewish Democratic Society also made available the full text of the OfCom decision as a contribution to open public debate. Prior to this release only parts had been available in the ECAJ submission or in the media.[7]</ref>

See also

References

  1. ^ "Operation Bulldog" as depicted in the series is a composite of two real-life operations: Operation Agatha, a number of targeted actions undertaken just before the King David bombing; and Operation Shark, the cordoning-and-search of Tel Aviv undertaken immediately after the bombing.
  2. ^ Mesheq Yagur was in fact searched as part of Operation Agatha, immediately before the King David bombing. A number of arms caches were discovered, several similar but none identical to what is shown in the series.
  3. ^ According to Kosminsky, the sequence at the end of episode 2 was inspired by a December 1947 of an incident when three soldiers were shot.[1]
  4. ^ Klein is based in part on Dov Gruner [2]. Gruner was executed on charges of "firing on policemen, and setting explosive charges with the intent of killing personnel on His Majesty's service". He had not himself actually shot anybody, although others who died at about the same time had. Gruner was hanged three months before the events of the Sergeants Affair; for this purpose in the character of Avram Klein the series has composited Gruner with the perpetrators of the Acre Prison Break.
  5. ^ The conditions of the imprisonment of Robbins and Nash, and the display and booby-trapping of their bodies, closely correspond to the fate of Sergeant Clifford Martin and Sergeant Mervyn Paice in what became known as The Sergeants Affair (although the actual communiqué attempted to claim that the killings were not a reprisal for the British hangings that day). The dates of death on the gravestones in Episode 1 are those of the real sergeants.
  6. ^ According to Kosminsky, the sequence of the girls being stoned was a "direct reconstruction" from documentary video footage (eg perhaps this video [3]). Channel 4's lawyers demanded such evidence at script stage before they would allow the scene. (Kosminsky interview for Front Row, BBC Radio 4, 4 February 2011; at 10:40)
  7. ^ Compare this video / wider context of similar taunting, from Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem
  8. ^ cf Robert Fisk, The Keys of Palestine, from Pity the Nation: the Abduction of Lebanon (1st ed, 1990; chapter based on articles published in The Times, December 1980)
  9. ^ The chain incident was based on the experience of an ISM activist [4]
  10. ^ cf Rachel Corrie
  11. ^ DVD Commentary (Peter Kosminsky and Hal Vogel), at 20:10
  12. ^ a b c d Rachel Cooke, Peter Kosminsky: Britain's humiliation in Palestine, The Observer, 23 January 2011
  13. ^ a b c d e f Sophie Bourdais, Peter Kosminsky: "Britain has a responsibility in the current Palestinian conflict" Template:Fr-icon, Télérama, 22 March 2011
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Production Focus: The Promise, Royal Television Society event, 16 March 2011
  15. ^ a b c Miri Weingarten, The Promise: Interview with Peter Kosminsky, JNews, 24 March 2011
  16. ^ Peter Kosminsky: Episode 1 Q&A, Channel 4 website, 6 February 2011
  17. ^ a b Marianne Behar, Interview with Peter Kosminsky, director of the Promise Template:Fr-icon, L'Humanité, 22 March 2011
  18. ^ a b Peter Kosminsky on The Promise, his drama about Palestine, The Daily Telegraph, 4 February 2011
  19. ^ a b Macha Séry, Israel-Palestine: to the origins of the conflict Template:Fr-icon, TéléVisions supplement pp.6–7, Le Monde, 20–21 March 2011. (text)
  20. ^ a b c d e f g h i Peter Kosminsky: Episode 4 Q&A, Channel 4 website, 27 February 2011
  21. ^ Marcus Dysch, Peter Kosminsky says he kept Promise, The Jewish Chronicle, 31 March 2011
  22. ^ Camilla Campbell (C4 head of drama), The Promise: Response to the Board of Deputies, dated 18 March 2011
  23. ^ DVD Commentary, at 18:10
  24. ^ Interview: Peter Kosminsky, The Jewish Chronicle, 3 February 2011
  25. ^ Peter Kosminsky video interview, Canal+ website, at 00:30
  26. ^ DVD Commentary, at 53:55
  27. ^ a b Peter Kosminsky, A film-maker's eye on the Middle East, The Guardian, 28 January 2011
  28. ^ Ben Dowell, Kosminsky to film Palestinian drama, The Guardian, 12 January 2006
  29. ^ Rachel Cooke, Britain's humiliation in Palestine, The Observer, 23 January 2011
    Also:
    Ian Burrell, Peter Kosminsky: Making mischief? It's an essential part of the job, The Independent, 16 June 2008
    Robin Parker, Kosminsky: Where is the BBC's mischief?, Broadcast, 12 March 2009
  30. ^ Stuart McGurk, Whipping up a desert storm, GQ Magazine, February 2011
  31. ^ Leigh Holmwood, Kosminsky signs with indie Daybreak, The Guardian, 1 November 2007
  32. ^ DVD commentary, at 32:40
  33. ^ Matthew Hemley, Channel 4 drama to be Morton’s directorial debut, The Stage, 25 July 2008
  34. ^ Leigh Holmwood, Channel 4's extra £20m for drama to fund Shane Meadows' TV debut, The Guardian, 26 August 2009
  35. ^ a b Peter Kosminsky and Hal Vogel, Behind the Scenes: The Promise, Broadcast, 3 February 2011
  36. ^ DVD commentary, at 04:10
  37. ^ Series on-screen credits
  38. ^ DVD featurette: Behind the Scenes – Filming in Israel for 2005, at 00:20
  39. ^ DVD commentary, at 1:06:15
  40. ^ DVD commentary, at 41:00
  41. ^ DVD commentary, at 36:00
  42. ^ DVD commentary, at 55:00
  43. ^ DVD commentary, at 1:04:40
  44. ^ The Blu-ray release includes a 5 minute featurette presented by Paddy Eason of digital effects house Nvizible
  45. ^ DVD commentary, at 14:40.
  46. ^ TV ratings roundups: 6 February 2010, 14 February 2010, 20 February 2010, 27 February 2010, Digital Spy
  47. ^ a b Tom Sutcliffe, The Weekend's TV, The Independent, 7 February 2011
    John Crace, TV review, The Guardian, 7 February 2011. "It's that rarest of TV beasts: a show that doesn't patronise its audience, (mostly) steers clear of cliches and trusts the characters to tell the story in their own time."
    Andrew Billen, Weekend TV: The Promise, The Times, 7 February 2011. "formidable". (paywalled).
    James Walton, Review, The Daily Telegraph, 7 February 2011. "will richly deserve any gongs that come its way".
    Matt Baylis, "Burning Bush of Genius", Daily Express, 7 February 2011, Page 39; also quoted by Broadcast, 7 February 2011. “This four-parter is a little burning bush of genius in the desert of well-intentioned TV dramas.”
    Caitlin Moran, TV column, The Times, 12 February 2010. "almost certainly the best drama of the year". (paywalled).
    James Delingpole, Grandfather's footsteps, The Spectator, 12 February 2011
    Hugh Montogomery, The Promise, Independent on Sunday, 13 February 2011. "[In the 1940s sequences,] Kosminsky balanced the demands of big-picture history and intimate human drama with a quite remarkable assurance. Contrastingly, the modern-day storyline was hobbled by an inertia that seemed at odds with its tumultuous subject matter."
  48. ^ Andrew Anthony, Rewind TV: The Promise, The Observer, 13 February 2011. Anthony felt it considerably better than Kosminsky's previous dramas and that it "seldom relaxed its grip..a serious, powerful and nuanced drama" but said: "At first there was a stockpile of emotional capital awarded to the Jewish side of the equation, with horrifying footage from Nazi concentration camps setting up the audience's sympathy for the existence of Israel. But a closer look revealed that the scales had been subtly loaded... the problem with the difference in treatment of the two sides is not, as some may claim, that it favours the Arab cause but that it does a disservice to Arabs themselves. We glimpse the psychological complexities of the English observers and their Jewish Israeli hosts, but the Palestinian Arabs are largely ciphers on whom western guilt can be readily projected. They remain, in other words, what critics of orientalism like to call "other". We're not privy to the doubts and conflicts of their beliefs, and consequently as characters they're not quite as worthy of our belief."
  49. ^ A.A. Gill, It’s not believable – and that’s a huge barrier, The Sunday Times, 13 February 2011. "predictably scant and underwritten"; "performances... occasionally rose to be adequate"; "faint and shrill". (paywalled).
  50. ^ Andrew Billen, Weekend TV, The Times, 14 February 2011. (paywalled).
  51. ^ Christina Patterson, Israel needs its friends more than ever, The Independent, 23 February 2011. "It's finely crafted, beautifully shot and extremely well written. It's also extremely balanced."
  52. ^ Rachel Cooke, The Promise, New Statesman, 17 February 2011. "Ambitious, well-written, superbly acted and expertly made, it is also provocative and challenging".
  53. ^ Stephen Kelly, Compelling drama is outside comfort zone, Tribune, 25 February 2011. "as good as anything currently showing on British television... beautifully filmed and superbly acted... a multi-layered drama that is both thought-provoking and compelling".
  54. ^ Harriet Sherwood, The Promise: powerful TV drama at its best, The Guardian website, 7 February 2011. "Vivid, harrowing and utterly compelling... This is a magnificent and powerful piece of drama, television at its best. Watch it if you can; I can't recommend it enough."
    Ian Black, The Promise delivers but still divides, The Guardian website, 14 February 2011. "It's a real achievement that this four-parter is so well-grounded in the history of the world's most intractable conflict."
  55. ^ David Chater, The Promise: sure to cause controversy, The Times, 5 February 2011. "an ambitious drama on a subject of paramount importance... immensely watchable"
  56. ^ Rachel Tarley, The Promise was the thinking person's take on the Middle East, Metro, 6 February 2011. "a carefully and beautifully executed film... an incredibly accomplished drama"
    Rachel Tarley, The Promise is not without its flaws but was powerful once again, Metro, 13 February 2011. "Despite these character flaws, this drama is a careful and thorough examination of a patch of British history many viewers will have known very little about".
    Rachel Tarley, The Promise is not being fulfilled, Metro, 21 February 2011. "The excellent pace and tension that this drama boasted in the first few episodes has given way to a lethargic script and almost sloppy plots."
    Keith Watson, The Promise: An epic journey that delivered an uplifting message, Metro, 25 February 2011. "if you stuck to your guns, this intelligent and emotional exploration of the Arab-Israeli conflict in Palestine, a landmine that could blow up at any moment, richly repaid that commitment."
  57. ^ Sunday’s TV: The Promise, The Times, 27 February 2011. "It is refreshing to see an ambitious drama tackling a subject of such importance." (paywalled).
  58. ^ Phil Harrison, Pick of the day: The Promise, Time Out (London), February 24 – March 2, 2011, page 127. "... a genuine attempt to demystify, understand and humanise this apparently intractable conflict. Brave filmmaking and a brave, entirely successful commission too."
  59. ^ Andrew Anthony, Rewind TV, The Observer, 6 March 2011. "The story was stretched still further by strained geographical leaps from Jerusalem to Haifa to Hebron and Gaza, whose only rationale appeared to be to maximise the depiction of Israeli wrongdoing....Nor was it feasible that, having been shot and then held captive in a hole in the ground for weeks, that Erin's grandfather, Sergeant Matthews would still be almost single-handedly carrying out the British army's duties in Palestine. Any more than it was likely that he and a young Arab boy would have walked around the unfolding massacre at Deir Yassin, where 107 Arabs were slaughtered by the Irgun on the eve of Israel's creation, like a pair of sightseers visiting Pompeii. But for all these faults, and the lopsided storytelling, this was still an exceptional drama.
  60. ^ Marcus Dysch, The Promise has an 'anti-Israel premise', The Jewish Chronicle, 24 February 2011
  61. ^ Marcus Dysch, Experts: The Promise deliberately demonises Israel, The Jewish Chronicle, 3 March 2011
    Board Raises Concerns Over the Channel 4 Programme 'The Promise', Board of Deputies of British Jews, 4 March 2011
    ZF response to The Promise, Zionist Federation, 4 March 2011
    David Abraham; Camilla Campbell, Channel 4 response to the Board of Deputies, dated 17 & 18 March; made available 1 April 2011
    Marcus Dysch, Promise critics: Stop moaning, you have Friday Night Dinner, The Jewish Chronicle, 7 April 2011
    Balihar Khalsa, C4 bosses defend Kosminsky drama, Broadcast, 8 April 2011
    Robyn Rosen, Broadcast regulator rejects every complaint on Promise, The Jewish Chronicle, 21 April 2011
  62. ^ Simon Round, Fatah could have written The Promise, The Jewish Chronicle, 3 March 2011. "Fatah could have written The Promise"; that the ignorant "would infer from [it] that Israelis are impossibly wealthy (portrayed as living in large houses with swimming pools)... Israeli soldiers in the Territories are universally unfeeling and brutal"; only Jews throw stones; pre-state Jewish militias are characterised as "cynical, manipulative and murderous, while the Arabs of the time are portrayed as defenceless and fearful"; in the Mandate period, only Jewish atrocities are depicted "in graphic detail", while contemporary Arab actions and atrocities are largely omitted, the threatened pan-Arab invasion being "dismissed as almost an irrelevance". The Deputy Editor, Jenni Frazer, criticised it in her blog published by the paper, for, inter alia, "the suggestion that all Israeli Jews live in palatial surroundings with swimming pools and four-star views, the generally hateful depiction of anyone on the Israeli or Jewish side compared with the near-angelic rendering of anyone on the Arab or Palestinian side".http://www.thejc.com/blogs/jenni-frazer/under-duvet
  63. ^ Howard Jacobson, Ludicrous, brainwashed prejudice, The Independent, 23 April 2011
  64. ^ Howard Jacobson and Jonathan Freedland, Last Words: Howard Jacobson in conversation with Jonathan Freedland, Jewish Book Week, 6 March 2011
  65. ^ David Cesarani, The Promise: an exercise in British self-exculpation, The Guardian Comment is Free website, 4 March 2011
  66. ^ Liel Leibovitz, War and Remembrance, Tablet Magazine, 16 March 2011 "The show’s writer and director, Peter Kosminsky, walks this tightrope of evenhandedness remarkably well... To Kosminsky’s credit, nothing and no one in the series is simple, and even the most zealous characters are allowed moments of humanity, a few good arguments in support of their cause, and a few moments of grace."
  67. ^ a b Ofcom adjudication, Ofcom, April 2011 (made accessible January 2012)
  68. ^ Robyn Rosen, "Broadcast regulator rejects every complaint on Promise", The Jewish Chronicle, 21 April 2011
  69. ^ David Abraham's Royal Television Society speech: full text, The Guardian, 24 May 2011
  70. ^ Bafta TV awards 2011: nominations in full, The Guardian, 26 April 2011
  71. ^ The director who beat The Promise to a Bafta, Ann Joseph,The Jewish Chronicle, 26 May 2011
  72. ^ Rockies miniseries noms gather titles from across the globe, Variety, 18 April 2011
    The Fiction Rockies 2011, Banff World Media Festival. Accessed 27 May 2011
  73. ^ Winners 2011, One World Media. Accessed 27 May 2011. "The jury acknowledges the laudable ambition of taking on this complex, ever-evolving and much debated subject and the difficulty of exploring it in a way which is immediate, undogmatic and surprising, and which explores a multi-generational story through compelling characters. It also bridges two periods in a way which smartly sheds new light on both."
  74. ^ Isabel Hanne, Double-voiced diary of a Promise kept Template:Fr-icon, Libération, 21 March 2011. "Admirable"... "the art of The Promise is in its ambiguity, its double-valuedness, its lack of Manicheanism"... "The excellent director... points a finger neither at one camp nor the other, but tells a story of two paths, a tragedy in two voices"
  75. ^ Thierry Gandillot, The Promise keeps its promises Template:Fr-icon, Les Echos, 21 March 2011. "Exceptional, stunningly intelligent"... the serious acting and considered dialogue "measure up to the ambition of this film, which does not bring unanimity but makes a proof of sincerity."
  76. ^ Sophie Bourdais, From one occupation to another Template:Fr-icon, Télérama, 22 March 2011. "Confronts the subject head-on, a remarkable mini-series in four episodes"... "unless you are already bristling with certainty, you come out of The Promise with far more questions than answers".
  77. ^ Muriel Frat, Sense and Sensibility in Palestine Template:Fr-icon, Le Figaro, 21 March 2011; p. 50 "magnificently filmed and masterfully acted... treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is perfectly balanced, by no means the least quality in this novel-like fiction. Great television." (Rating: four stars out of four – excellent).
  78. ^ Éric Mandel, To the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Template:Fr-icon, Le Journal du Dimanche, 19 March 2011. Mandel describes Kosminsky's body of work as combining "epic spirit with historical and journalistic rigour to deal with the conflicts of our time". On this series, he writes: "Historians will point out some simplifications... Others may complain of political bias towards the view of the English pro-Palestinian left. Nevertheless Kominsky [sic] delivers a historical fiction useful for understanding an intractable conflict".
  79. ^ Cécile Deffontaines, The Promise : le serment Template:Fr-icon, Le Nouvel Observateur. "The point of view is that of someone from the British pro-Palestinian left, and should be seen as such", but it looks beautiful [est une très belle fresque], and "has an epic spirit rare on television".
  80. ^ Emmanuel Berretta, Canal+: Israel, the painful saga Template:Fr-icon, Le Point, 17 March 2011. "Kosminsky is adamant that he is refusing to judge the situation, but what he shows of the blood-soaked birth of Israel and the treatment of the Palestinians today is, for Israel, overwhelming. One is left by The Promise profoundly affected by the journey, the ambiguities of the characters, often torn between two loyalties. A shower of awards is to be expected for Kosminsky. And also gibes."
  81. ^ Laurent Larcher, Le serment: an ambiguous work Template:Fr-icon, La Croix, 18 March 2011
  82. ^ Sandra Benedetti, The Promise Template:Fr-icon, L'Express, 21 March 2011
  83. ^ CRIF denounces an anti-Israeli production broadcast by Canal+ Template:Fr-icon, Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France, 21 March 2011
  84. ^ Michel Zlotowski, "Police called to Paris The Promise riot", The Jewish Chronicle, 31 March 2011
    Kosminsky has questioned certain details of the JC report, including the implication that any special disclaimer was broadcast.
    CRIF, Meeting with the president of Canal Plus Template:Fr-icon, 28 March 2011
  85. ^ "saga au vitriol pour une désinformation assassine!": Shocked and Outraged! Europe-Israel and CJFAI call to demonstrate on March 21 at Canal Plus Template:Fr-icon, CRIF, 18 March 2011
  86. ^ The Promise series: demonstration outside the headquarters of Canal+ Template:Fr-icon, Agence France-Presse via La Croix, 21 March 2011
    Videos: Demonstration in front of Canal+, the various speeches Template:Fr-icon, Europe-Israel website, 24 March 2011
    Jewish organisations call for the withdrawal of The Promise, a Canal+ series Template:Fr-icon, Le Post, 22 March 2011, reporting "a few hundred" (quelques centaines) people attending
    Michel Zlotowski, "Police called to Paris The Promise riot", The Jewish Chronicle, 31 March 2011, reporting 500 people attending
    CRIF and Le Post reported the following speakers, representing a number of major Jewish communal organisations in France: Richard Abitbol, president of the Confederation of Jewish Friends of Israel and France; parliamentarian Claude Goasguen, president of the France-Israel friendship group of the National Assembly of France, who described the series as "a shameful caricature" (une série caricaturale, honteuse); Joel Mergui, president of the Central Consistory; Sammy Ghozlan, president of the Bureau Nationnal de Vigilance Contre l'Antisémitsme (BNVCA); Claude Barouch, president of Union des patrons et des professionnels juifs de France (UPJF); and Gil Taieb, vice president of the Fonds social juif unifié
  87. ^ Jewish organisations call for the withdrawal of The Promise, a Canal+ series Template:Fr-icon, Le Post, 22 March 2011
  88. ^ ECAJ complaint to SBS regarding The Promise
  89. ^ 17 January 2012
  90. ^ 13 January 2012
  91. ^ [5]
  92. ^ [www.jwire.com.au/news/the-promise-the-ecaj-voices-concern-about-dvd-launch The Promise Jwire 16 January 2012]
  93. ^ [6]
  94. ^ ABC Unleashed 17 January 2012
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