In my Aug. 17 blog post, discussing the forthcoming film Wadjda, I mentioned Anthony Bourdain's "Saudi Arabia" episode (No Reservations), and that the second season of his new CNN-based Parts Unknown show would include a trip to Israel. Upon its airing last night, I decided to follow up.
The episode was entitled "Jerusalem," yet Bourdain makes his way through Israel, the West Bank, and surprisingly, the Gaza Strip.
I did not have high political expectations: Bourdain tends to be careful about his encounters with "controversial" issues, at times letting slip his nationalist assumptions and belying his projected quasi-rebellious, subcultural image. Moreover, his show is presented by CNN, which for many years now has covered the Palestine-Israel conflict in a manner protective of Israel and the United States. Due to this dynamic, the episode attempted to steer wide of uncomfortable realities, thus offering up coverage that ultimately treats Israel gently.
Because Israel is the occupying power, the act of deemphasizing the occupation does the occupier a service - and the occupied a disservice. If the particulars were different, where US geostrategic interests were not at stake, the episode might very well have been different. One imagines Anthony Bourdain in Chechnya and immediately pictures him being a bit more forthright.
That said, there were good moments of honesty. He mentions that the Israeli-built West Bank wall runs mostly inside the Green Line, on Palestinian territory. He mentions the fact that a half-million Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem represents a contravention of international law.
On the other hand, Bourdain makes the obligatory remark that Hamas, which rules Gaza, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States - the standard New York Times line. Close attention is paid to rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel - certainly a reality, and an appalling one at that - but Gaza's systematic and brutal punishment by Israel (and the United States) is very lightly touched upon.
In general, the episode strives to establish the usual symmetry in a grossly asymmetrical situation.
Despite my criticisms, Bourdain for years has done an excellent job of showing Americans different cultures; he's entertaining and effective. Now and again he can push the liberal-centrist envelope ever so gently, hence serving a bit as a barometer. A little over ten years ago, the language used when discussing the conflict was far more constrained; now a travel host can mention settlements and international law in the same sentence. As routinely mentioned on this blog, sensitive historical facts over time move from left to center.
Travel guru Rick Steves demonstrated impressive honesty last year in his Huffington Post article on Israel (see April 7, 2012, blog post). "Jerusalem" was a moment for Bourdain to show similar grit.
Grade: Politics, C. Entertainment, B-.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/shows/anthony-bourdain-parts-unknown/season-2/jerusalem/index.html
