Like many people during lockdown, I have found Netflix to be a useful escape from reality, which has now become a vast landscape of uncertainty.
In the last couple of weeks, I finished the third season of Fauda, an Israeli television series. But far from serving as a comforting balm, the series only left me even more agitated.
Fauda – chaos in English – has a storyline centred on the inner world of a tight-knit group of Israeli commandos known as the Mista'aravim, Arabic-speaking soldiers posing as Palestinians.
Fluent in the language and culture, they infiltrate Palestinian villages and families to root out militants. But their clumsy work often destroys innocent lives.
The level of gun violence is more akin to watching three solid hours of Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto than a sophisticated thriller.
In one crucial scene, Nurit, the only woman in the commando unit, impersonates a French humanitarian worker to gain access to the Gaza Strip.
“Do you have children?” she innocently asks a crossing guard, handing over papers identifying her as an aid worker. “I’m delivering medication to children at Shifa Hospital.”
Nurit’s van bears the neutral emblem of humanitarians around the world: a red cross. But instead of bandages and medicine, it is loaded with an arsenal of weapons.
It is a violation of the Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law for members of the military to impersonate humanitarians or journalists.
In war, the offence is known as perfidy: a false promise of good faith.
So when Fauda, one of the most popular series on Netflix, promotes the use of the Red Cross symbol, which is explicitly protected under international humanitarian law, as a ploy to get into Gaza, it unnerves me deeply. Every time that emblem is abused, its power as a symbol of protection is eroded.
Israel is known to have used this tactic in real life; the scene in Fauda is most likely based on a botched 2018 operation of the Israel Defence Forces when soldiers dressed as humanitarian workers to enter Gaza.
In the early 1990s, during the First Intifada, the Israeli internal security service Shin Bet impersonated journalists in West Bank villages to gain information. On one occasion, they used the real name of a reporter for Israel's Channel 1, Yoram Cohen.
"The big problem for me now is to work in the territories," Cohen later told the Committee to Protect Journalists. "People there know me and now they are afraid of me … my life could be in danger.”
Israel is not alone in having deployed this tactic. It has happened in Pakistan, Nigeria, Sri Lanka and many other places. In Colombia, too, the government has admitted using soldiers to impersonate television journalists and humanitarian aid workers in order to reach the positions of The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
By posing as journalists or humanitarians, security forces undermine the role of free press and relief workers, and bring a shadow of mistrust to our profession.
When one of the most popular series on Netflix, promotes the use of the Red Cross symbol, protected under international humanitarian law, as a ploy to get into Gaza, it unnerves me deeply
I remember being shocked after the fall of Grozny, Chechnya in January 2000, when the first Russians I saw were not soldiers, but doctors who set up emergency tents to cure the wounded that Moscow's forces had just bombed. The inconsistency stunned me.
As my late colleague Fred Cuny once pointed out, the lines between soldiers and humanitarians have often blurred since antiquity, though usually on the side of conducting genuine humanitarian work rather than using it as a cover.
“The assistance of armies to the populations they had conquered was seen as a humane gesture to the vanquished and, not inconsequentially, a means of winning some degree of loyalty to the new regime.”
Cuny was murdered in Chechnya in April, 1995. His killers were never caught; but Cuny the humanitarian remains legend. I first met him in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where he worked to restore the water and gas system to the battered and besieged city.
After Cuny’s death, my colleagues and I realised how precarious our work was. Journalists and relief workers are often thought to be spies working in hostile areas. The number of times I was detained and accused of being a spy was laughable.
This is entirely down to events of the kind casually depicted in Fauda: security forces crossing the line and pretending to be relief workers or reporters.
ISIS and other Islamist militant groups sometimes captured journalists for ransom, but there was also the underlying suspicion that these reporters were working for foreign governments gathering intelligence. Confessions were often forced through torture.
When two colleagues and I were captured in Kosovo in March 1999 by Serbian paramilitary forces, they stole our gear, marched us into an isolated forest, made us kneel and performed a mock execution before letting us go. They claimed to have thought we were spies when they held us.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the real danger lies in jeopardising “the media's position as an independent body, especially those journalists working in conflict zones who rely on their civilian status, as established by the Geneva Conventions.”
I'm disappointed in the creators of Fauda for making light of international humanitarian law.
One of the series’ actors, Lior Raz was actually a member of one of the commando units and used his first-hand experience for his character. He should have known better. Human rights worldwide are experiencing a massive and dangerous backlash already. We don’t need Netflix to add to that mix.
Janine di Giovanni is a Senior Fellow at Yale’s Jackson Institute and the author, most recently, of 'The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria'
The specs: McLaren 600LT
Price, base: Dh914,000
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 600hp @ 7,500rpm
Torque: 620Nm @ 5,500rpm
Fuel economy 12.2.L / 100km
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
PROFILE OF CURE.FIT
Started: July 2016
Founders: Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori
Based: Bangalore, India
Sector: Health & wellness
Size: 500 employees
Investment: $250 million
Investors: Accel, Oaktree Capital (US); Chiratae Ventures, Epiq Capital, Innoven Capital, Kalaari Capital, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Piramal Group’s Anand Piramal, Pratithi Investment Trust, Ratan Tata (India); and Unilever Ventures (Unilever’s global venture capital arm)
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The Bio
Hometown: Bogota, Colombia
Favourite place to relax in UAE: the desert around Al Mleiha in Sharjah or the eastern mangroves in Abu Dhabi
The one book everyone should read: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It will make your mind fly
Favourite documentary: Chasing Coral by Jeff Orlowski. It's a good reality check about one of the most valued ecosystems for humanity
PROFILE BOX
Company name: Overwrite.ai
Founder: Ayman Alashkar
Started: Established in 2020
Based: Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai
Sector: PropTech
Initial investment: Self-funded by founder
Funding stage: Seed funding, in talks with angel investors
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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UAE
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Norway
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Canada
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LILO & STITCH
Starring: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Rating: 4.5/5
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Boston%20Strangler
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2018 ICC World Twenty20 Asian Western Regional Qualifier
Saturday results
Qatar beat Kuwait by 26 runs
Bahrain beat Maldives by six wickets
UAE beat Saudi Arabia by seven wickets
Monday fixtures
Maldives v Qatar
Saudi Arabia v Kuwait
Bahrain v UAE
* The top three teams progress to the Asia Qualifier
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Brief scores:
Liverpool 3
Mane 24', Shaqiri 73', 80'
Manchester United 1
Lingard 33'
Man of the Match: Fabinho (Liverpool)
FROM%20THE%20ASHES
%3Cp%3EDirector%3A%20Khalid%20Fahad%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EStarring%3A%20Shaima%20Al%20Tayeb%2C%20Wafa%20Muhamad%2C%20Hamss%20Bandar%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ERating%3A%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
Porsche Taycan Turbo specs
Engine: Two permanent-magnet synchronous AC motors
Transmission: two-speed
Power: 671hp
Torque: 1050Nm
Range: 450km
Price: Dh601,800
On sale: now
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
PULITZER PRIZE 2020 WINNERS
JOURNALISM
Public Service
Anchorage Daily News in collaboration with ProPublica
Breaking News Reporting
Staff of The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.
Investigative Reporting
Brian M. Rosenthal of The New York Times
Explanatory Reporting
Staff of The Washington Post
Local Reporting
Staff of The Baltimore Sun
National Reporting
T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi of ProPublica
and
Dominic Gates, Steve Miletich, Mike Baker and Lewis Kamb of The Seattle Times
International Reporting
Staff of The New York Times
Feature Writing
Ben Taub of The New Yorker
Commentary
Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times
Criticism
Christopher Knight of the Los Angeles Times
Editorial Writing
Jeffery Gerritt of the Palestine (Tx.) Herald-Press
Editorial Cartooning
Barry Blitt, contributor, The New Yorker
Breaking News Photography
Photography Staff of Reuters
Feature Photography
Channi Anand, Mukhtar Khan and Dar Yasin of the Associated Press
Audio Reporting
Staff of This American Life with Molly O’Toole of the Los Angeles Times and Emily Green, freelancer, Vice News for “The Out Crowd”
LETTERS AND DRAMA
Fiction
"The Nickel Boys" by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
Drama
"A Strange Loop" by Michael R. Jackson
History
"Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America" by W. Caleb McDaniel (Oxford University Press)
Biography
"Sontag: Her Life and Work" by Benjamin Moser (Ecco/HarperCollins)
Poetry
"The Tradition" by Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon Press)
General Nonfiction
"The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care" by Anne Boyer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
and
"The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America" by Greg Grandin (Metropolitan Books)
Music
"The Central Park Five" by Anthony Davis, premiered by Long Beach Opera on June 15, 2019
Special Citation
Ida B. Wells
Fixtures
50-over match
UAE v Lancashire, starts at 10am
Champion County match
MCC v Surrey, four-day match, starting on Sunday, March 24, play starts at 10am
Both matches are at ICC Academy, Dubai Sports City. Admission is free.
BMW M5 specs
Engine: 4.4-litre twin-turbo V-8 petrol enging with additional electric motor
Power: 727hp
Torque: 1,000Nm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 10.6L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh650,000
Heavily-sugared soft drinks slip through the tax net
Some popular drinks with high levels of sugar and caffeine have slipped through the fizz drink tax loophole, as they are not carbonated or classed as an energy drink.
Arizona Iced Tea with lemon is one of those beverages, with one 240 millilitre serving offering up 23 grams of sugar - about six teaspoons.
A 680ml can of Arizona Iced Tea costs just Dh6.
Most sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, five teaspoons of sugar in a 500ml bottle.
Zayed Sustainability Prize
KLOPP%20AT%20LIVERPOOL
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