The Honourable Woman.

For the past four weeks I've been gripped by a BBC mini-series called "The Honourable Woman." As something of a spy thriller it is all about conspiracy, deception and intrigue. As result anything I say about it is likely to ruin it for people who are still trying to catch up.

However the story centres around two British/Israel siblings - Ephra Stein played by Andrew Buchan and Nessa Stein played by real life Hollywood movie actress Maggie Gyllenhaal in her first TV role. Their father built a fictional arms company which according to the show provided Israel with its "strong walls" as it grew in the aftermath of the second world war. However the Stein children have decided to use that great wealth to help bring peace to the Israel/Palestine conflict by building universities in Palestine and laying high speed Internet connections to link Gaza with the West Bank. When the head of a Palestinian company awarded one of these Internet contracts dies in mysterious circumstances it opens up a family secret that has lay buried for eight years.

If this show was broadcast back in May it would simply have been a high quality TV drama that gave the viewers a very brief history of the Israel/Palestine conflict and posed some general questions about the current situation. However it made its long awaited debut on July 3rd 2014. The current Israeli operation in Gaza began five days later on July 8th 2014. As a result I think this show is going to be incredibly closely watched with both sides poring over it looking for evidence of either an Israeli bias or a Palestinian bias.

So in its defence I should say that the show strike me as mainly being about people and the lies and schemes they concoct. The Israel/Palestine conflict is really just a device to allow this fictional world to be created. However the central characters are British Israelis and they need to be portrayed sympathetically in order for the viewer to care about them. As such plenty of people will attack the show for not portraying all Israelis as evil monsters. However I must says that the attitudes portrayed seem broadly accurate based on my experiences and I suspect that as the storyline unfolds the darker sides of certain personalities are going to be exposed.

It must be said though that Hamas appear to be a lot better at building tunnels then the BBC prop department.

12:35 on 28/7/14 (UK date).