Anti-Semitic speech is alive and well in the Arab world, as
recent televised examples highlighted and translated this week by the Middle
East Media Research Institute.
In one instance, Egyptian politician Khaled Zaafrani, during
a May 12 interview on al-Hafez TV, a Salafist Egyptian station, makes a series
of anti-Semitic statements seemingly culled directly from the “Protocols of the
Elders of Zion.”
“It is the Jews who have instigated wars in the world,” said
Zaafrani, who founded a obscure political party that broke away from the Muslim
Brotherhood in the years before the 2011 revolution. He blamed “the Jews” for
World War I and World War II and added that they “cannot live without wars,
conspiracies, deceit and deception” and will “not seek or uphold peace.”
Zaafrani, smiling eagerly, then said that “it is well-known
that during Passover they make matzos called the ‘Blood of Zion.’ They take a
Christian child, slit his throat, and slaughter him…they never forgo this
rite.”
When asked by the show’s host if the Jews still do this,
Zaafrani responded “absolutely” and then repeated a story, based on the
infamous Damascus blood libel of 1840, of how a group of Jews killed a kindly
Christian priest in order to use his blood for Passover matzos because “they
didn’t have any children available.”
“When this subject is raised,” he noted in closing, “the Jews
consider it to be a problem, just like the problem of Hitler and the
Holocaust.”
The Zaafrani interview was one of several clips showing
televised anti-Semitic statements by Egyptian public figures uploaded this week
by MEMRI.
Another recent example from elsewhere in the Arab world
comes from the Syrian TV show “Khaybar,” a historical drama which aims to show
the struggles of the early Muslims with the Jews of Arabia. Yusri al-Jindy, the
writer of “Khaybar,” told Egyptian newspaper al-Masry al-Youm earlier this year
that ”the goal of the series is to expose the naked truth about the Jews and
stress that they cannot be trusted.”
In the excerpts, a group of Jewish elders are shown plotting
to instigate discord among the Muslim Arab tribes of the region. In several
scenes, it is shown how the Jews profit from warfare and strife and plan to
hire mercenaries to carry out their schemes.
Later, when a noble Arab prisoner refuses to murder women
and children and burn down a village in order to be set free, the Jews end up
doing the deed themselves, while wearing masks.
“Khaybar” is scheduled to be broadcast throughout the Muslim
world during the month of Ramadan celebrations, which began June 9.
No comments:
Post a Comment