Image by ChrisYunker via FlickrThat atrocities were, and are, being committed on both sides is irrefutable but the major incidents shown in the series were all based on historical fact and the programme makers clearly took enormous care in researching the facts and, in my opinion, gave the viewer, for once, an unbiased version of events and enabled them to be more informed and educated on the situation.
This is what the media, at its best, should be prepared to do - to truthfully present the facts, without comment or bias and to leave the public to draw their own conclusions from the information provided. I was fortunate enough to have an elder cousin, now sadly dead, who I admired greatly who became a professor in history at Glasgow University. When he died one of the most moving obituaries that I read was from a former student who said that he taught his students to never believe what they read in the history books but to do their own research, if possible, by studying contemporary records and sources and drawing their own conclusions on events.
At first I thought that the main character, "Erin" - a student filling in her gap year by staying with the family of a friend with duel nationality who had been called up to do her national service in the Israeli army - was not only naive but also that her role lacked any kind of credibility. It was only as the series developed that I realised that she was being used as a device by the programme makers to represent the vast majority of the British public who know nothing and care less about the events or the history of the area, which has perhaps the potential to have more impact on our lives than anything else in this century.
