Erin hardly knows him, but whilst helping her mother to clear out his flat she finds a diary of his time in the 6th Airborne Division in British Mandate Palestine after the Second World War.

The idea for The Promise arose from the 1999 drama Warriors, Kosminsky's sympathetic portrayal of British troops peacekeeping in central Bosnia in 1992–93, their hands tied by an impossible mandate.

Kosminsky felt the trait wasn't often shown on screen unless it was a major plot point, so he liked the idea of showing "an eighteen-year-old girl who is trying to live a normal life, despite the fact she occasionally had epileptic fits; and how other people cope with that as well".

[12][18] The casual relationship Erin has with Eliza, "the way they talk, the way they react, their limited attention span" was very much drawn from his experience of his daughters and their friends,[24] and he felt that the combination of naivety and flinty assertiveness were not atypical of an "eighteen-year-old kid from London", particularly given an emotionally rather unsympathetic upbringing.

"[12] Through the modern story, Kosminsky wanted to show how the past can have consequences for the present, and that having left "chaos, political confusion, bloodshed and war", Britain has a responsibility for what happens today.

"[28] The BBC agreed to sell its interest and let the project go into turnaround — for a generously low rate according to Kosminsky[12] – and in 2007 he secured an exclusive deal with Daybreak Pictures,[29] run by Channel 4's former head of film David Aukin, with whom he had previously made The Government Inspector (2005) and Britz (2007).

Exceptionally, Channel 4 agreed the extra funding, and filming started in Israel in early 2010 under the revised title Homeland, beginning with the period scenes at Stella Maris.

[33] According to The Guardian: Over the course of a long career Kosminsky has become adept at turning one country into another: "I used the Czech Republic for Bosnia, Kenya for Somalia, Ghana for Liberia, Morocco for Iraq, India for Pakistan and Leeds for Northern Ireland."

[16] Part of the Old City in Jerusalem stood in for Nablus in the West Bank,[37] the Hebron-set scenes were filmed in Acre,[10] while Gaza was represented by the Israeli-Arab town of Jisr al-Zarqa.

The film-makers considered and rejected a number of options, including live-action and CGI, before reluctantly deciding to fall back on black-and-white library footage from the Imperial War Museum in London, only to come to the view that the resulting sequence had more artistic and moral power than anything they might have been able to create.

[45] By the second episode Andrew Billen, writing in The Times, was concerned that both Len and Erin were meeting from the Arabs a "little too much kindness for the comfort of all of us hoping that Kosminsky will parcel out recriminations in exactly equal proportions"; but nonetheless applauded the "immersive and emotional" quality of the series.

[10] There was also praise from Stephen Kelly in Tribune,[51] Harriet Sherwood and Ian Black, Jerusalem correspondent and Middle East editor of The Guardian respectively,[52] and David Chater, previewing the serial for The Times, who called it courageous and applauded its lack of didacticism.

[57] A press attaché at the Israeli embassy in London, however, condemned the drama to The Jewish Chronicle as the worst example of anti-Israel propaganda he had seen on television, saying it "created a new category of hostility towards Israel".

[59] The Jewish Chronicle itself took the view that rather than "attempt to tell both sides of what is a complex and contentious story", the series had turned out to be "a depressing study in how to select historical facts to convey a politically loaded message".

"[61] In an interview with Jacobson during Jewish Book Week 2011, Jonathan Freedland, having seen the first episode of The Promise, said Kosminsky used antisemitic tropes, misrepresenting Israel and Zionism as being a consequence of the Holocaust, whose imagery he had abused.

[63] On the other hand, Liel Leibovitz, writing for American online Jewish magazine Tablet, took the view that, "contrary to these howls of discontent, the show is a rare and riveting example of telling Israel's story on screen with accuracy, sensitivity, and courage".

[78] The Nouvel Obs and Le Journal du Dimanche both identified the series as reflecting the viewpoint of the "British pro-Palestinian left", but the latter praised it as "nevertheless a historical fiction useful for understanding an intractable conflict",[79] while the former commended its "epic spirit, rare on television".

[81] However, La Croix's reviewer was more hostile, considering that although there was "no doubt that the film ought to be seen", it "cannot be mistaken for a history lesson but a great partisan fiction", marred by bias and an "embarrassing" representation of Jews.

[85] The Confederation of French Jews and Friends of Israel (CJFAI) issued a call (publicised by CRIF) for a demonstration against the programme, which it described as "a vitriolic saga of murderous disinformation".

Critical reaction was positive, with The Australian selecting part one as its pick of the week, calling its character development and performances "compelling", and saying that the series "offers insight into the history of one of the world's most conflicted places".

This is powerful stuff, distilling enormous difficulties to a deeply personal level",[92] and the newspaper selected the series for its annual television review, writing that it was "gripping... it dazzled via a raw and complex portrait of conflict in the Middle East... Kosminsky's storytelling was mesmerising.

The editor of the Australians for Palestine website wrote, "Although people had written to SBS commending it for showing "The Promise", [Managing Director] Mr Ebeid received only one supportive letter addressed to him personally...Many more are needed in defence of the series for the hearing.

[97] In January 2012 the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) filed a 31-page complaint with the SBS[98] claiming that the series "unrelentingly portrays the entire Jewish presence throughout the country, including modern-day Israel, as an act of usurpation by Jews who, without exception, are aliens, predators and thieves and who enforce their usurpation by brutal, racist policies akin to those inflicted by the Nazis upon the Jewish people", and compared it to the infamous Nazi film Jud Süss.

[105] A further complaint was made to SBS on 1 February 2012 by Stepan Kerkyasharian, Chair of the New South Wales government's Community Relations Commission, noting "concern that the series negatively portrays the WHOLE of the Jewish People.

The ECAJ reaches the opposite conclusion only by itself imputing unfavourable attributes to the Jewish characters, judging them by harsh and unrealistic standards, interpreting their conduct in the worst possible way, and making quite absurd comparisons.

"[107] Responding, ECAJ Executive Director Peter Wertheim said: "Professor Wootten denies that The Promise makes and invites judgements, but this contention is belied by the strident comments made by other defenders of the series in posted comments on the SBS and other websites, and is as low on the scale of credibility as the stream of non-sequiturs that have been put forward in its defence, including posts asserting that The Promise could not possibly be antisemitic because Kosminsky is Jewish, or because it was filmed in Israel and included Jewish actors, or because it was nominated for a BAFTA award.

Like it or not, these three depictions are antisemitic stereotypes..." On the other hand, the committee's chair Senator Doug Cameron said he had "enjoyed" the programme, and quipped in closing that he hoped the session had helped The Promise's DVD sales.

[109] As of January 2012 the serial had also been sold to SVT Sweden, YLE Finland, DR Denmark, RUV Iceland, RTV Slovenia, Globosat Brazil, and TVO Canada.

[104] DR Denmark broadcast the series in an early evening slot on the DR2 channel over the Easter weekend 2012, under the translated title Løftet som bandt ("The Promise that bound").

[115] In Canada, TV Ontario had scheduled the programme for Sunday evenings, from 15 April to 6 May; but the channel has since decided to present a geology series with Iain Stewart in this slot, with The Promise held over to a later date.