The Honourable Woman - BBC Television Series 2014

Maggie Gyllenhaal as Nessa Stein in The Honourable Woman (BBC)

Maggie, sister of Jake, who we recently saw in Nightcrawler stars as the head of a giant Israeli arms manufacturer, except that now they have turned their sights on more peaceful business pursuits, like fiber optics for the poor, and she is running a big part of her business in Britain. But you know, because she's an Israeli, she probably has a handgun tucked in her knickers, and the defense armaments business in Israel is probably still going full steam.
    The show is mostly an espionage thriller with a little bit of family life stirred in. Nessa goes around attending high profile events and saying a few words here and there. At one point she tells us that terrorism is rooted in poverty, and that by bringing high speed internet communications to the Palestinians she is helping to rid the world of terrorism. I don't know, that might work. Eventually.
    But right now terrorism is rooted in the belief system of the radical musselmen, and that's what they are teaching their kids from the get go. A subsistence level job, or shoot, even a decent paying job, when they get to be 20 years old is not going to overcome 20 years of indoctrination. The only way we are going to stop the perpetuation of this madness is if everyone stops buying oil from the Arabs, and that is not going to happen. Well, we could stop paying the Arabs for their oil. That would stir the pot a little.

     We do have one troublemaking five year old boy. He can't sit still, which is typical of the breed, but he manages to escape his minders (parents, nanny, security guys) which leads the first time to finding him in kitchen eating carrots with the help and the second time running away with his kidnappers. My immediate reaction was 'what's wrong with these people (the adults)? Can't they keep track of one five year old brat?' But now that I've had time to reflect on it I recall that, yes, there were times when I lost track of one or more of my kids for a couple of minutes. But then I was never a target like this family obviously is. And an extremely level of vigilance would probably have given me a heart attack. You can't be vigilant all the time. At the very least you have to sleep sometimes.