New York, NY, July 11, 2013 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today condemned an anti-Semitic television series being broadcast across the Middle East and around the Arab world during Ramadan.
“Khaiber,” which is currently being aired on the satellite network Dubai TV, the Algerian 3 station and Dream TV, is a multi-million dollar television series produced by Echo Media Qatar that dramatizes the battle between Muslims and the Jews of the town of Khaiber in Arabia and depicts Jews as the enemy of Islam. According to some traditional Islamic sources, the battle ended with the execution of thousands of Jews and their ultimate subjugation. Episodes aired to date have revealed classic anti-Semitic motifs, including a Jewish conspiracy to undermine Arabs, as well as depicting Jews as cheap, greedy and immoral.
“With Syria, Egypt and other countries in the Middle East going through historical upheavals, it is absurd and outrageous that the entertainment of the Ramadan season promotes the Muslim subjugation of caricatured Jews,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. “The uprisings in the Arab and Muslim world have revealed a hunger among much of the Middle East for democracy, accountability and the development of effective civil and pluralistic society. Khaiber and other productions of its ilk represent the old detrimental approach of promoting Muslim societal unity through focusing hatred on Jews and Israel.”
Khaiber is airing throughout Ramadan, a holy month of fasting in Islam and the prime television season in the Muslim world. In previous seasons, there have been a number of anti-Semitic miniseries broadcast during Ramadan, including one which featured the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a plot device.
ADL first raised concern about Khaiber and its anti-Jewish content and themes in February 2013 by exposing that the program’s Egyptian writer, Yusri Al-Jindy, had previously depicted Israelis and Jews as bloodthirsty savages in other television productions.
Today, protesters at anti-Israel rallies around the world often evoke the battle of the town of Khaiber in their chants to galvanize supporters.
“Those who are rallying for a new society across the region must reject the anti-Semitism promoted in this television series,” Mr. Foxman said. “Faith leaders in the Muslim world should also unite in rejecting attempts to revive age-old hatreds.”