This episode is a not-at-all subtle metaphor for the fighting in the Middle-East. It's all about Americans, Israelis, Palestinians and maybe Iraqis. Of course it is similar too the WW2 occupied Europe dilemmas but the M-E connection is more direct. It's kinda brilliant though, portraying the Israelis and Americans as Cylons! As cold, uncaring robots! The makers must've have thought: "If this pisses the Israelis and Americans off to the point of steely resolve, well how much worse can it get for the Palestinians? In the mean time, here's something to enjoy." The humans are now the suicide bombers, This episode shows all sides to a story of occupations, there's the evil collaborator, Baltar, the good collaborator, Gaeta, the resistance movement, with the dilemma of using suicide bombers nicely split between hardliner Thigh versus moderate Roslin. Even the Cylons get some dilemmas thrown between them, should they pound hard on the resistance or appease them a while longer? (So it's not all bad, you Yanks! ;-) ;P )
The dilemma of collaborating and thus having some influence versus not cooperating so as not to be "tainted" by the oppressors, is of all times and places and was very real in the WWII. For example, the Dutch Royals fled to London, while the Danish didn't. The latter cooperated with the Nazis to some degree but it is said that this saved a number of Jews. The Netherlands, on the other hand, had the highest proportional number of Jews delivered to the gas chambers, including Anne Frank. There's no real connection there, but still ...
This dilemma is also reflected in the plight of the one soldier ('Jammer')joining the Cylon Police, which he thinks is a good thing, humans being policed by humans. He might've been right but he ends up being used by the Cylons and has to commit atrocities to humans.
Great episode, and it is a testament to deplorable state of affairs in the USA that one commentator here, expressed disbelieve that this episode was not censored in the USA. He just expects ANY anti-Bush statements to be censored, even if some are a fictional TV show. Bush (i.e. Karl Rove) was probably very wise not to mess with this episode, since it would've raked up a storm of protest ...