ADL Blasts ‘Vehemently Anti-Semitic’ TV Show ‘Khaybar’ Currently Airing in Middle East
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by Zach Pontz
Scene during filming of upcoming Khaybar series.
The Anti Defamation League (ADL) Thursday condemned as “vehemently anti-Semitic” the TV miniseries “Khaybar” currently being aired in the Middle East and across the Arab World.
“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,” Foxman said.
The multi-million dollar television series produced by Echo Media Qatar dramatizes the ancient battle between Muslims and the Jews of the town of Khaybar in Arabia and depicts Jews as the enemy of Islam.
Earlier this week the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) released a video of the stars of “Khaybar,” that captures them making inflammatory and anti-Semitic remarks. One actor says that all Jews think about “is making money,” while another says that Jews “have no moral values.”
Jewish human rights group, the Simon Wiesenthal Center also criticized the series on Tuesday.
“The fact that we now have the proliferation-and if you will the fine-tuning-of this kind of hateful imagery on satellite TV and on the internet is devastating. To undo that kind of hatred will take at least a generation. And the spillover is dramatic,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center told The Algemeiner.
“We’re not talking about rabble rousers in the streets. This is a sophisticated production that will have commercials attached to it and it shows its becoming embedded in their cultures,” he added.
Last month anonymous blogger Elder of Ziyon oversaw the delivery of a petition, urging mainstream human rights groups to condemn “Khaybar,” to the New York City headquarters of both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Thus far he says that both organizations have failed to respond to his overtures.
Neither Human Rights Watch nor Amnesty International responded to detailed requests from The Algemeiner for comment.
Khaybar is airing throughout Ramadan, a holy month of fasting in Islam and the prime television season in the Muslim world.
Today, protesters at anti-Israel rallies around the world often evoke the battle of the town of Khaybar 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,” Foxman said. “Faith leaders in the Muslim world should also unite in rejecting attempts to revive age-old hatreds.”
