The Promise

Just when I thought that Channel 4 had completely abandoned the high ideals of its founders in favour of lucrative trash like Big Brother and the various cookery programmes, this comes along. A deeply moving, beautifully acted drama that tries with some success to explore the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in all its complexity. This complexity is echoed in the narrative structure of the drama which on one side follows the experiences of Len, an army sergeant in the British Forces in Palestine after the Second World War, and secondly follows his granddaughter Erin as she tries to make sense of present day Israel and Palestine during a summer visit. As always the seeds of the present lie in the past as Len witnesses the bloody birth of the state of Israel.

Just as 18-year-old Londoner Erin sets off to spend summer in Israel with her best friend Eliza, she finds an old diary belonging to her seriously ill grandfather, Len. Intrigued by the life of this old man she barely knows, she takes the diary with her, and is stunned to learn of his part in the post-WWII British peace-keeping force in what was then Palestine.

Left to her own devices when Eliza begins National Service in the Israeli army, Erin witnesses the complexities of life, for both Jews and Arabs, in this troubled land. And as Len's story comes to life from the pages of the diary, Erin discovers the disturbing truths about his time in Palestine and the atrocities he witnessed in the 1940s.

Retracing Len's steps in modern-day Israel, Erin sets out on a heart-breaking journey in an effort to understand and fulfill a promise made by her grandfather over 60 years ago.

Ultimately "The Promise" is strident in its dissatisfaction with contemporary Israeli policy towards Palestinians which it portrays as implicitly racist. However it strives for completeness and honesty showing the slaughter from Palestinian suicide bombing, along with the naked prejudice and extremism of the Jewish settlers in the occupied territories, something that is given official sanction by the protection of the Israeli armed forces. Difficult to watch at times, it does not aim to lecture on history but to narrate a story.

I have no doubt the people on both sides of the argument will complain that the series is biased, but I think that if you have both sides crying "bias" than it's probably a fair depiction. This is that rarest of TV dramas, it treats the viewer as an adult and shows that for complicated situations there are no easy solutions.

The Promise is available on dvd and blu-ray from today and/or you can still watch it online on Channel 4 - 4oD.

(The photos are from the Channel 4 website)