An Egyptian TV show prank where famous Egyptian actors were told they were being interviewed by Israeli TV during the course of the interview, turned into mayhem. Believing he was being interviewed for Israeli television, a celebrated Egyptian actor slapped the hostess so hard so hard that she fell over and cowered in the corner of the studio.
The clips were recorded and transcribed by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a non-profit group that says it seeks to “bridge the language gap between the Middle East and the West by monitoring, translating, and studying Arab, Iranian and Turkish media, schoolbooks, and religious sermons.”
Actress Mayar Al-Beblawi is shown in the MEMRI-excerpted and transcribed clip declaring that “In that country [Israel], they are all liars. You wouldn’t believe it. They are real liars. They keep whining all the time about the Holocaust, or whatever it’s called. With all the Palestinians that you have killed, you are still whining about the Holocaust and its lousy figures?!”
Al-Beblawi adds later: “These people sawed off [the head] of John the Baptist. They are the slayers of the prophets, what else can we say about them?… Allah did not curse the worm and the moth as much as he cursed the Jews.
A third pranked actor, Mahmoud Abd Al-Ghaffar, erupts in anger when he thinks interviewer Mubarak is a Jew. He grabs producer Alaa by the hair and demands to know the truth. “Who are you? Tell me who you are.” Assured by Mubarak that “this is a candid camera show,” he protests that “You brought me someone who looks like a Jew…”
He says to Mubarak, “If you weren’t a girl, the moment you told me you were Jewish… I hate the Jews to death.”
Without irony, the show organizers held the bigoted reactions to be expressions of “patriotism” rather than racism.
To read more, see Times of Israel
