The Jerusalem Post reports that a recent NBC TV show promotes the “dual loyalty” theme as well as reinforcing stereotypes of brutal Israeli treatment of Palestinians:
The plot line of the February 27 installment of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, a fictional police drama broadcast across America on NBC, centers on a journalist who is poisoned after his girlfriend uncovers a foul-up by Israeli intelligence.
The show depicts Israeli bulldozers destroying Palestinian schools, with at least one character referring to “Israeli brutality.”
It also includes a Jewish police captain who agrees to cover up for Israel by shutting down a criminal investigation at the urging of the head of the local pro-Israel group.
In one scene, after Captain Danny Ross tells his officers to halt their investigation, Detective Mike Logan confronts him and asks, “Are you a Jew first and a cop second?”
The show includes thinly disguised characters representing AIPAC officials, Rachel Corrie, etc. CAMERA has more details, including partial transcripts, etc.
It’s not news that the media — especially television — tend to reduce complex issues to simple stereotypes, often totally distorting the truth. It is interesting and disturbing to see the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel direction in which it is going, which was unheard of here recently (although it has been the rule in Europe for some time).
It seems to me that these themes are being injected at the (relative) “high end” of popular culture, for example by the Mearsheimer/Walt paper and the Jimmy Carter book; they then trickle down until they meet the slime bubbling up from the bottom where the neo-Nazis reside.
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