Peres to complain to UN about anti-Semitic skit on Abu Dhabi TV
By Herb Keinon
JERUSALEM (November 19) - Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres plans to lodge a formal
complaint with the UN today over the airing of
an anti-Semitic satirical skit on Abu Dhabi
Television over the weekend, cabinet
secretary Gideon Sa'ar said yesterday.
Sa'ar said after the weekly cabinet meeting
that the satire, which he said the government
views "with gravity," reflects a culture of
"incitement, hatred, and blood libel" in the
Arab world.
The satirical skit, which aired on the second
most popular television station in the Arab
world, depicted a character meant to be Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon drinking the blood of
Arab children, as a grotesque-looking haredi
looks on.
In another skit, Dracula appears to be taking a
bite out of Sharon, but is himself killed
because Sharon's blood is polluted.
The skit reminds us "of the worst forms of
anti-Semitism that we have seen throughout
our history," Sa'ar said. He said it is Israel's
"obligation" to point this out to the world and
let the international community see the type of
hatred and incitement Israel is up against.
To this end the Foreign Ministry yesterday
made tapes of the skit, with English subtitles.
The visiting EU delegation, headed by Belgian
President Guy Verhofstadt, was to receive a
tape last night.
Verhofstadt was asked about the program
during a press conference he held with Sharon
yesterday, and said he thought the depiction of
Sharon was a "scandal."
Foreign Ministry officials said that, as bad as
the satire is, it is by no means unique in the
Arab world. These types of caricatures appear
almost every day in the Arab press, especially
in Egypt, one official said.
He said what makes the Abu Dhabi satire
worse is that while newspapers are seen by a
few thousand or a few hundred thousand
people, this particular television show was
beamed into millions of homes throughout the
Arab world.
The program - produced in Kuwait and
featuring an Egyptian actor - was one of a
series of programs on Sharon to be aired
during Ramadan.
Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior,
who heads an interministerial committee to
battle anti-Semitism, reacted to the skit by
saying that anti-Semitism takes on a new
appearance in every generation, and that
hatred of Israel is the new, modern
manifestation of this ancient hatred.
"If this was meant to be satire, it failed," said
Wayne Firestone, the Anti-Defamation
League's director here. "This was just a very
inappropriate, hateful message, supposedly in
honor of Ramadan. One would expect that a
more humane and peaceful message could be
delivered by people of this region during
Ramadan, but instead what we have is a
supposed satire that repeats the age-old blood
libel against the Jewish people."
Firestone said the ADL sees the satire as
being "aimed at the entire Jewish people. It is
true they used the caricature of Sharon, but all
the classical images of Jews with horns and of
Jews drinking the blood of innocent non-Jews
are a libel of the entire Jewish people." |
