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U.S. warns Egypt about anti-semitic TV series

Special to World Tribune.com
MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE
Monday, November 11, 2002

The United States has quietly threatened to turn an Egyptian television series into a new dispute between the two allies.

Bush administration officials and congressional leaders said a television series based on the anti-Semitic "Protocols of Zion" has become a leading issue between Cairo and Washington. At least 26 members of Congress have appealed to Egypt to halt the series.

"We have expressed our concerns to the Egyptian government directly about what we've heard about this program," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "At this point I'm sure we'll be watching very, very closely and raising these issues, as appropriate, depending on what actually airs.

Boucher said the Egyptian government must be responsible for the contents of its state-owned television. The series is meant to have 41 episodes.

"Anything that appears to give legitimacy to something that's so odious, that's so insulting, and so thoroughly discredited, we don't think is good and useful, particularly in the part of the world where some of these things can be inflammatory and some of these things, you know, can contribute to an environment that we think is dangerous for all of us," Boucher said.

So far, Egypt has rejected the U.S. appeals. Egyptian Information Minister Safwat Sherif reached his decision after viewing all the objectionable episodes.

"The dramatic views expressed by the series contain nothing that can be considered anti-Semitic," Sherif said.

Officials said the series is fiction and represents the nation's provisions for artistic freedom. They said a range of countries, including Morocco, will also air the series.

The series begins with the Israeli war of independence in 1948 and the flight of hundreds of thousands of Arabs from the British mandate of Palestine. The narrator traces the Arab defeat in the war to 1855 and a plot by Jews to take over the world and expel the Arabs from their land.

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