Documentary / War & Politics
November 1947. The United Nations votes the partition plan for Palestine. For some, it is a dream becoming reality; for others, it is the beginning of a catastrophe. Seventy years after this historic vote, the land of Palestine remains an open wound, a battleground for two…
In 1896, Theodor Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian journalist worried about the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, published The State of the Jews, a book in which he advocated the foundation of a Jewish national home. Palestine, the destination definitively chosen by the Zionist movement in 1905, saw the first waves of immigrants arrive. They founded the first kibbutzim and cultivated the land they had bought from the Arabs. Initially peaceful, relations between the two communities became strained when the Palestinians realized that their territory was slipping away from them.
In the aftermath of the 1948 war, the priority for the new state was to welcome Jewish immigrants from all over the world. European Jews who had survived the World War II were succeeded by Sephardim, whose integration proved more difficult. In 1956, the crisis provoked by Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal revealed the permanent tension between Israel and its Arab neighbors while Palestinian nationalism developed.
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A brief televised guide to the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A succinct, lucid summary and concise presentation of its basic concepts and decisive events, while laying them out on a timeline and a spatial map, related from a variety of viewpoints and positions concerning the conflicted parties.
Pillar of Fire focuses on the History of Zionism, beginning in 1896, in the wake of Theodor Herzl's revival of the concept of Jewish nationalism and continues to follow the Jewish People in the 20th century, the early stages of Zionism, followed by the waves of Aliyah prior to the founding of Israel, the Revival of the Hebrew language, the Ottoman Empire's rule in over the Land of Israel, the British Mandate, Anti-Semitism in Europe, the rise of Nazism and The Holocaust, the history of the Yishuv, the Jewish struggle for independence, and ends in 1948, with the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
Nessa Stein, the daughter of a Zionist arms procurer who as a child witnessed his assassination. Now an adult, Nessa inherits her father's company and changes course from supplying arms to laying data cabling networks between Israel and the West Bank. Her efforts to reconcile the Israelis and Palestinians lands her an appointment to the House of Lords and creates an international political maelstrom.
In 2006, the body of the girl Tair Rada was found in the bathroom stall at the school where she studied. Days later, the police arrested a suspect - Roman Zadorov, and after a week of intense interrogation he admits and restores the murder. However, even after he was convicted three times, many still believe in his innocence. The series explores the length and breadth provision and leaving no stone unturned in an attempt to complete the picture of the puzzle, exposing new and dramatic discoveries. Through a complex mosaic of interviews, photographs and cinematic touch with the extensive use of inquiry and archives, the show tries to fathom the overwhelming truth.
Ross Kemp journeys to the Middle East where the bitter conflict has cost tens of thousands of lives and forced millions to live in fear and misery. Ross visits Gaza one year on from Operation Cast Lead, a massive Israeli military assault on the Gaza Strip that saw as many as 1,400 Palestinians die, thousands of homes destroyed, and much of Gaza's infrastructure obliterated. He then travels to Israel and discovers a country divided, one that is surrounded by enemies and living under the constant fear of rocket attacks and suicide bombs from groups dedicated to its destruction.
