Anti-Israel and anti-Semitic statements are frequent on both children’s and adult TV shows from Arab and Muslim countries. In continuing to exploit Disney-like or even Disney characters to disseminate anti-Semitic propaganda, the Algemeiner and Jerusalem Post reported that the self-described “official voice of Donald Duck in the Middle East” declared on his Twitter account that he “truly wish[es] #Israel [would be] demolished.” He also tweeted that he “hate[s] Zionism.” According to the Algemeiner, Disney tried to distance themselves from Wael Mansour’s comments, by saying that he was a third-party contractor in the past, but would not condemn Mansour’s comments. While Mansour’s comments are appalling, it’s not atypical, as other Arab TV shows reinforce anti-Semitic stereotypes on children and adults.
One TV show, shown in many Muslim countries during Ramadan, is called “Khaybar.” The name of the show is a reference to the Muslim chant, “Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahud, jaish Muhammad sa yahud,” which means, “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Mohammed is returning.” This chant refers to a seventh-century massacre of Jews in the city of Khaybar by Mohammed and his soldiers, and, according the Jerusalem Post, is used “as a battle cry when attacking Jews or Israelis.” In the show, Jews are shown as misers, and the writer of the series, Yusri al-Jindy, described the goal of the series as striving “to expose the naked truth about the Jews and stress that they cannot be trusted.”
Both the company that produced “Khaybar” and Egypt, where the show was filmed, have a history of creating and disseminating anti-Semitic media. The Zionist Organization of America says that “Khaybar” was produced by a Qatari company, Echo Media Qatar, which produced a series called “The Collapse of the Caliphate” in 2010. That series put the blame on the Jews for trying to destroy the Caliphate of the Ottoman Empire by scheming with enemies of the Sultan. In 2002-2003, Egypt produced a forty-segment series called “Horseman without a Horse,” which was based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. One segment of the show depicts Jews using gentile blood to make Matzah, reminiscent of the blood libel from the Middle Ages.
In a clip of a children’s show from 2007 where a Hamas Mickey Mouse-like character named “Farfour” is martyred by the Israelis, Farfour refers to Jews as “filth” and “plunder[ers],” in addition to referring to Israelis as “terrorists.”
When people are exposed to such propaganda from such a young age consistently throughout their lives, they can’t help but believe it. In addition, because most of the Jews were expelled from Muslim countries, many residents of those countries have never encountered a Jew firsthand, which would contradict the stereotypes they see on TV. While there has been little or no mainstream media coverage of these anti-Semitic TV shows, according to Steve Stotsky of CAMERA, the international media, UN, and Amnesty international run to cover any possible Israeli “crime” against Palestinians. Such lopsided coverage allows anti-Semitism to continue perpetrating throughout the Arab world.
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Contributed by CAMERA Intern Eli Cohn