30 (Law & Order: Criminal Intent)
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30 is an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
[edit] Synopsis
Logan and Wheeler investigate when Josh Lemle, a reporter friend who had backed Logan after he had gotten himself exiled years earlier, comes to Major Case to report his own murder. Logan agrees to help his friend find out who used Polonium-210 to poison him, but Lemle is reluctant to reveal the whole story to Logan because not all of it is pretty. Both Hazmat and the FBI get involved as the search turns city wide, with both the mayor and Homeland Security wanting answers.
As detectives Logan and Wheeler follow the trail of clues all over the city, they find themselves digging deeper and deeper into Middle Eastern intrigue. They learn that Sarah Myers, an American school teacher who had moved to Palestine to show solidarity with the Palestinian people, was really a mole for Mossad, and that her death was the result of a betrayal by the Palestinians, who had given a tip to the Israelis that a suicide bomber would disguise herself as a blond American woman in order to get closer to troops. The detectives eventually decide that the Plutonium was actually meant for Rebecca Slater (Miriam Shor), a reporter who was about to release the story, but never learn whether it was the Syrians, Hamas, or the Israelis who were responsible.
[edit] criticisms
The episode was widely criticized for portraying Israel in a harsh and unbalanced light and appearing to promote anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews as disloyal citizens. The episode shows Israeli bulldozers destroying a Palestinian school and 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?" When one character tries to draw distinctions between the actions of the IDF and the terrorist targeting of civilians by Hamas, Logan cuts him off, implying that it is also common IDF practice to target civilians.[1]
