On March 21, 2016, NCIS: Los Angeles aired a significant episode on the theme of Islamic terrorism on American soil, “The Seventh Child,” written by Frank Military. It begins with twin boys chased by some swarthy men while trying to rid themselves of suicide vests. One twin is hit by a car resulting in a huge and deadly explosion. The show’s NCIS team is able to track down the surviving twin, an 11-year-old who immerses himself in the water tank atop a high-rise building with hopes of de-activating his vest bomb.

True to the NCIS franchise’s strange uses of Israelis, the DNA of the twin killed by the explosion matches that of Tomer Zahavi, the son of David and Rachel Zahavi who reside in Israel. As it turns out David, the father, is a diplomat who has visited the United States seven times over the past four years.

The NCIS staff members Skype the Zahavi family and discover that somehow the Israeli son, Tomer  (whose name is constantly mispronounced by U. S. agents as “Tamar”), was a triplet with the two boys in suicide vests.

The surviving vest-laden kid, Nadir, at first describes his terrorist attire as “my clothes for my trip to Heaven.”  When lovable Special Agent “G.” Callen (Chris O’Donnell), tries to determine whether the vest can be removed safely, the lad pontificates defiantly: “You are the Great Satan. And I would rather destroy us both than let you touch my body. Your touch will prevent me from entering the Kingdom of Heaven, and I will die before I let that happen.”

The writer is good at depicting Nadir’s wavering between what he was brainwashed to think and his natural desire to live. There is psychological realism in his wanting to justify his brother’s violent death, “They didn’t kill my brother. They sent him to Heaven.”

The fast-working NCIS staff members discover that because Tomer’s mother could not conceive a child, he was born in Mumbai, India through a surrogacy method supervised by a physician there. The writer makes a point of noting the “lower cost” of surrogacy in India.

Apparently, some of the frozen embryos had been pilfered by an Al Qaida affiliate terrorist cell whose operatives were harvesting and raising these boys to commit suicide bombings in America. Callen gets Nadir to cooperate by cajoling him to meet his parents and his brother over Skype, thus disabusing him of the notion drilled into him that his parents had abandoned him.

Meanwhile, once the safe-house for the terrorist cell is discovered, Special Agent Sam Hanna (LL Cool J), confronts some other boys in suicide vests. The eldest, a teenager, asks him: “Are you a follower of the Prophet?” When Hanna responds that he is, the teen exhorts, “Then prepare to meet him in Paradise.”

Agent Hanna then tries to talk sense into these kids. “You always have a choice,” he tells them calmly. “Mohammed never sent children into war. Do you want to die? A person who commits suicide is doomed to all eternity, to repeat his death over and over.” To Hanna’s entreaties and to his insistence that the boys were never abandoned by parents, the eldest responds, “Americans lie.” Sam Hanna urges: “Imagine Allah in your heart. Does he want us to take care of one another, or does he want us to destroy one another?”  The younger children cry that they don’t want the vest and that they don’t want to die. Then the teenager also cries, “Don’t let me die.”

This is a well-motivated episode with some emotional power. Perhaps such dramas could be effective in countering the internet recruitment propaganda of organizations such as ISIS. But if television programs are to be successful at this, they would have to transcend the (albeit psychologically valid) impression that would-be suicide bombers who choose to opt out are motivated by fear or weakness. One of the agents does appropriately point to the cowardice of the children’s handlers, “You’d strap a bomb on a child, but [are] not so willing to die yourself?”

Dramas on the theme of child terrorism would also have to reference Muslim texts with greater depth, perhaps featuring a real-life, respected imam citing or summarizing authentic Islamic teachings. Also, some of the boys’ accusations, such as “your country has killed children,” should be given responses.  

Writer Frank Military made a creditable attempt to treat his theme seriously, but in a side plot “joke” about a couple of the agents broaching the topic of marriage and child-rearing, there was a clear disparagement of the circumcision ritual. That would certainly be off-putting to Muslim -- and, for that matter, Jewish -- viewers. 

In any case, the mantra of the NCIS agents to the children is, “You got to trust me.”  Yet Special Agent Sam Hanna, who has been depicted in the series as a Koran expect and Arabist of sorts, does in this episode indicate that he is a “follower of the Prophet” or Moslem. Yet this has not, to my knowledge, ever been hinted at before. Is he represented as lying for purposes of negotiation?

There are other trust problems in the NCIS franchise. On the 2016 finale of NCIS: New Orleans, a Homeland Security official planted a bomb on a boat because he distrusted the U.S. government and wanted to make a “statement.” This episode attracted further publicity when it was revealed that a leading cast member is not returning because, despite her bravery, her character was “compromised” by consorting with that home-grown, insider U.S. government hater.

The exact same theme of distrust of, and contempt for, the U.S. government by a high official, this time in the F.B.I. training school, led to the deaths of many innocent victims by home-grown bombers on ABC’s Quantico. One episode of Quantico (Nov. 29, 2015) actually suggested that the White House operates its own terror squad!  

According to these TV series on different networks and by different, even competing, production companies, the corruption and lies in our national security organizations and in the government itself are pervasive enough to drive seasoned, tested and accomplished agency leaders to mass killings. That is the subliminal message despite whatever is said or done.

While there is, of course, place for healthy skepticism and even suspicion regarding government in TV dramas and in American life and politics (and especially in the press), we need to ask ourselves and our media at what point trust itself is undermined or eroded by formula TV anti-government crossover themes now that, more than ever before, we must convince others of the basic decency and good intentions of our country and its institutions.

And then, of course, there is the strange use of Israel in the original NCIS series, on Quantico, and in this NCIS: Los Angeles episode.

I know that several readers of my reviews in American Thinker regard NCIS as depicting Mossad as justifiably ruthless and that these readers deplore the forum given to vilification of Israelis on Quantico. While I am thankful for the input, I fail to see how either portrayal of Israelis is healthy. And it is certainly distracting to bring an Israeli family into an episode that attempts to reach out to would-be Islamic terrorists. You never know nowadays when a “mere TV show” might wield some life-saving influence.

This episode was repeated only days before Sunday’s report of a child suicide bomber who killed 54 people at a wedding in Turkey and of another would-be child bomber in Iraq who was stripped of his suicide vest.  The timing would indicate that the content and context of such episodes just might be more important -- and urgent and potentially life-saving -- than we may think.