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Saudi Arabia: Jewish characters in TV show enrage Palestinians, ignite debate in Arab Muslim world

May 6, 2020 9:00 am By Christine Douglass-Williams

The series also depicts Muslims interacting with Christians positively, in a display of “religious diversity.”

With all the talk about “reform” in Saudi Arabia, this show is sure to be seen by some as a demonstration of that country’s growing acceptance of infidels as equals. Not so. Saudi Arabia continues to arrest and torture dissidents, including female human rights activists; it still has one of the highest execution rates in the world; it still exports Wahhabism worldwide, albeit less energetically than it has in the past; and its male guardianship system still endures. So why then would the Saudis promote an image of reform and allow a show based on “diversity”?

It’s advantageous for it to do so at this time. Here’s a brief explanation:

Saudi Arabia is facing serious consequences resulting from its clashes with Shiite Iran and its proxies. About half the country’s oil production was disrupted—5 million barrels a day—as a result of drone strikes by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on the extensive Saudi Aramco oil facilities in Abqaiq on September 14, 2019….The strike proved that Riyadh is vulnerable to attacks from Tehran and its proxies. Further Houthi strikes on the Saudi oil business would be disastrous because oil is the central pillar of the kingdom’s economy and the cornerstone of its development….Saudi Arabia urgently needs an alternative export route for its oil, and that is a further reason for Riyadh’s overtures toward Jerusalem. The kingdom is already talking to Israel about a pipeline to Eilat, only 40km away, for the import of Israeli natural gas….Whether or not Saudi Arabia is pressing for war with Iran, its options to avoid one are narrowing. The kingdom, which is within range of Iranian missiles, has much more to lose from such a war than does Iran.

In a region that is rife with fierce and escalating battles for hegemony, it is no surprise that Saudi Arabia would seek economic survival and greater regional power. And better the Saudis than Iran. For the Saudis, that even includes a slow and qualified opening toward Israel.

But the country is careful about just how much it is willing to associate with Israeli citizens. While Israel has opted to allow its citizens to travel to Saudi Arabia under certain conditions — namely business — the Saudis aren’t ready to allow that, whatever the impression this TV series might create. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan reiterated in late January that Israeli citizens are still banned from his country, until some “acceptable” agreement is reached with the Palestinians.

So while the Sunni center of the world reaches out to new friends of convenience, its mere allowance of a fictional TV show based on non-existent religious “diversity” is causing the expected rage among Islamic zealots.

“The show, all of whose actors are Arab, chronicles the lives and intrigues of the community’s Muslim, Christian and Jewish families, who run shops next to each other in the market, visit each other’s homes, and attend each other’s weddings and funerals.”

Palestinians are enraged and view the show as a Saudi betrayal of a “long counted on Saudi backing against the Jewish State of Israel.” A Palestinian journalist from the West bank commented about the series: “It is frightening, shameful and strange that this is happening.”

“Jewish Characters Star in Saudi TV Show, Igniting an Arab Debate,” by Ben Hubbard, New York Times, May 2, 2020:

BEIRUT, Lebanon — In a mud-walled village in the Persian Gulf, a Christian woman sheds tears of love for a Muslim merchant. But he is stuck in a miserable marriage to a woman who longs for another Muslim man. But she can’t have him, because he is crazy about the local rabbi’s daughter.

These tangles of interreligious intrigue unspool in a new blockbuster television series that has set off heated debates across the Arab world about the region’s historical relationships with Jewish communities and the shifting stances of some of its current leaders toward Israel.

Fans laud the program, set in the 1940s and 1950s, for highlighting an often overlooked aspect of the region’s past — Jewish communities in the Persian Gulf — while providing a much-needed example of coexistence among different faiths.

But critics have blasted it as a blatant effort to reshape Arab views of Israel to pave the way for formal relations, or what many in the Arab world call “normalization.”

With the coronavirus shuttering mosques and the holy city of Mecca, this year’s Ramadan, which began last week, was already bound for the history books.

But the virus’s effect on the Islamic holy month is just one aspect that will be long remembered, a prominent Palestinian journalist, Abdel Bari Atwan, wrote this week….

….In one episode, a father discovers his son playing an online video game with an Israeli child and fumes about his offspring fraternizing with “the enemy.” In other scenes, one relative suggests using the boy’s new connection for spy work while another wants to exploit it for Israeli business contacts and accuses the Palestinians of being ungrateful for the support received from Saudi Arabia over the years.

Those scenes have enraged Palestinians, who long counted on Saudi backing.

“Even in my political nightmares, I did not expect an Arab to dare to speak so openly and comfortably about normalization with Israel,” said Ziad Khaddash, a Palestinian writer and journalist in the West Bank. “It is frightening, shameful and strange that this is happening.”

“Um Haroun,” which is drawing a huge audience, centers on an elderly Jewish nurse in an imaginary village in the Gulf around the time of the creation of Israel in 1948.

The show, all of whose actors are Arab, chronicles the lives and intrigues of the community’s Muslim, Christian and Jewish families, who run shops next to each other in the market, visit each other’s homes, and attend each other’s weddings and funerals…..

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Filed Under: Featured, Islamic antisemitism, Israel, Ramadan, Saudi Arabia Tagged With: Um Haroun


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Comments

  1. William Garrison says

    May 6, 2020 at 9:46 am

    Um/Umm Haroun translates as “Mother of Aaron”…..is a common male given name of Arabic origin, related to the Hebrew name of the Prophet Aaron. Both are most likely of Ancient Egyptian origin, from aha rw, meaning “warrior lion”. (per Wikipedia).

  2. RonaldB says

    May 6, 2020 at 10:58 am

    Sounds wonderful. The Saudis, Iranians, and Palestinians have to duke it out among themselves without US interference. The Palestinians make it clear to all what treacherous scumbags they are, ready to bite the hand that feeds them at the drop of a pin. This article made my whole day.

  3. mortimer says

    May 6, 2020 at 11:57 am

    Yes, the dirty kufaar must never be depicted as fully human or as having noble characters or as dear friends of Muslims. That would imply that the KUFAAR are not ‘the worst of beasts’ deserving of persecution and subjugation.

    The hatred directed against the dirty kufaar must be maintained and fanned by hyperbole, exaggeration and misinformation! To depict the kufaar as lovable, real people is seen here as blasphemous, even if the lovability of the kafirs is real. They have to deny there is anything good in a kafir.

    • RonaldB says

      May 6, 2020 at 12:41 pm

      Hey. But look at the benefits. The Saudis consider the Iranians (fellow Muslims) to be existential threats, so they cozy up to Israel. The Palestinians receive funding from the UN agencies just because it’s an opportunity for the UN to make a blow against Western civilization, so the Palestinians don’t have to be nice to anybody…and are nasty to everybody. The Hamas government, clearly distinct from the Palestinian government, is beholden to Iran for extra goodies in addition to their UN largess, so they can be depended on to support Iran. I don’t expect Iran to weigh in too much on the TV series, since Iran itself has a prosperous Jewish community.

      I fervently wish the US would stay out of it altogether, and let the participants sort it out among themselves.

      I see the alliances falling roughly like: Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt aligned against Iran, Syria, Hamas, Iraq and Qatar. Let Saudi Arabia play with their own money and citizens if they want to fight Iran for control of Yemen.

  4. Kepha says

    May 6, 2020 at 9:33 pm

    I suspect that this is some government trying to ready its people for a normalization with Israel and the West.

  5. gravenimage says

    May 6, 2020 at 9:55 pm

    Saudi Arabia: Jewish characters in TV show enrage Palestinians, ignite debate in Arab Muslim world
    ……………………..

    Muslims are enraged that any Infidels–Jews especially–could *ever* be shown as positive.

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