Without Rhyme or Reason

Unbelievable.

Arutz Sheva reports on another fine product of Syria:

The Syrian-produced television series, called "Al-Shatat," includes horrific distortions of Judaism, including the presentation of the use of a Christian child's blood in preparation of Matzah for Passover, as religious necessity. The graphic episode features Jews kidnapping a Christian boy and slitting his throat to drain his blood, and the brutal execution of a Jew by a "Talmudic" court, by pouring boiling lead down his throat. [Warning: The following two video links to the above episodes are very difficult to view: 1) Christian boy, 2) Talmudic Execution] All of the anti-Semitic libels in this series are presented as fact.

The series also portrays Jews conspiring to assassinate world leaders, cause stock market crashes, and provoke world wars, as part of a plan to conquer the world. Another episode shows Jewish leaders helping the Nazis slaughter Europe's Jews in order to win world sympathy for Zionism.

This is the movie that Natan Sharansky took with him last year to Berlin to show to German, French and other European officials. According to Joel C. Rosenberg, who worked with Sharanksy briefly in 2000:

He told me the European officials he met with initially hemmed and hawed over whether anti-Semitism is really on the rise, or posing a serious threat of any kind — that is, until he showed them video clips of the Syrian film. Then the debate stopped, and everyone in the room sat in stunned silence.

The movie was recently being shown in Jordan, that epitome of Moslem moderation--until the Government of Jordan received a letter of protest from 24 American rabbis who met last month with Jordan's king. The movie has been stopped.

The Embassy of Jordan issued the following statement:

It has come to our attention that a controversial program entitled "Al-Shatat" or "The Diaspora" has been broadcast from an independent/private channel entitled "Mamnou'" operating from the Media Free Zone in Jordan, which is not subject to Jordanian Law. The program itself was not broadcast from any Jordanian channel.

"Al- Shatat" drew concerns for inciting hate. Accordingly, the program has been stopped from the private channel as of Tuesday, October 25th 2005. The stoppage was only done through personal intervention of responsible Jordanians.

The Free Media Zone broadcasts different programs through 84 different channels and more channels are expected to emerge from the zone in the near future. The Government of Jordan does not monitor or control the content of any program broadcasting from the free zone, whether it is cultural, political, or otherwise. This is in accordance with the agreement between the government of Jordan and the Media Free Zone which is, in turn, affiliated with the Arab Media Company ART. [emphasis theirs]

It's very nice of the Jordanian government to not monitor or control what goes on in this 'free zone,' but isn't there anyonewatching the store? It's nice that 'responsible Jordanians' intervened, but the statement does seem to neglect to mention those 24 rabbis who first had to write that letter.

Speaking of being responsible, on the production end, Syria actually had factchecking for this movie of theirs. According to MEMRI:

The series was written by Dr. Fathallah Omar, lecturer at the University of Aleppo, and Syrian historian Dr. Suheil Zakar was appointed to check its historical accuracy...Later, Dr. Zakar discussed the Jews' influence in the U.S., which the series addressed, albeit not extensively, by referring to 'Benjamin Franklin's Speech,' whose source is a 1935 piece of Nazi propaganda:"Regarding the Jews in America, their control of the money, media, and political decisions frightened some of the American leaders, such as President [sic] Benjamin Franklin, who tried to include in the Constitution sections against Jewish control. [emphasis theirs]

President Benjamin Franklin? Good to know that Dr. Zakar the historian is on the case.

And meanwhile, in Great Britain they are banning those offensive piggy banks.

Unbelievable.

See It's Not Anti-Semitic If It Rhymes
See The EU, Reuters, and Fear


Technorati Tag: Anti-Semitism.