Ahmadinejad Stars In Israeli Commercial

From Haaretz:

Israeli satellite television has a new star - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
By Sara Miller

Israel's satellite company YES has adopted a new ally in its war on cable rival HOT - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A new commercial for the company shows Ahmadinejad - who in real life has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel - addressing the Iranian nation.

"My brothers," says the mock Iranian president in a speech broadcast through loudspeakers across the country, "the uranium is in our hands and after Monday it will be goodbye to Israel."

Unexpectedly, the Iranian leader's supporters - dressed in Shiite religious garb - take exception to the speech, dismayed at the prospect of missing their favorite Israeli television series.

"What are you talking about?" asks one of his followers. "It's the last episode of Danny Hollywood on Monday."

The declaration of Iranian president's intent to destroy Israel is met with riots, and the police are deployed to control protests which suddenly take the form of a big budget musical.

The commercial, produced by advertising company McCann Erickson, is entirely a parody of "Cazablan," a hit Israeli musical of the 1960s.

The commercial appears on YouTube, although not with English subtitles:



NewsfromIslam, who posted the video, writes:

...I called up my friend Meir Javedanfar, a Middle Eastern analyst based in Tel Aviv, who has keeps an eye on all things Iranian. Was there any Iranian reaction about their esteemed Prez being used as a shill for Israeli TV? The ad has not gone un-noticed in Tehran. Meir read me a commentary from an Iranian news website, Asiran.com: "The Israelis make use of every opportunity to remind us that their country is under threat from Iran, despite the fact that they have over 200 nuclear weapons themselves."

No humorous banter there. But, it's easy to forget that Iranians, barraged by their own propaganda (and by the saber-rattling of Israeli Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz who says that an Israeli military strike against Iran is "unavoidable") are just as paranoid about Israel's intentions as Israelis are of Iran's. If only Ahmadinejad were a harmless ticket collector on one of Teheran's buses...

Maybe some day.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Ahmadinejad.