Ramadan series ‘Khaybar’ is a battle cry against Jews
Special holiday show deals with relations between Jews and Arabs in 7th century.
By ARIEL BEN SOLOMONKhaybar movie 370(photo credit: YouTube Screenshot)
During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn until dusk, after which they eat and many enjoy television shows made especially for the holiday.Arab TV satellite channels are airing a series this year called Khaybar, referring to the Muslim massacre of the Jews of the town of that name in northwestern Arabia in 628 CE.After the attack, some Muslims, including Muhammad, took surviving women as wives.The Muslim conquerors charged the Jews a 50 percent tax on their crops and in 637, after Muhammad’s death, the Caliph Omar expelled the remaining Jews from Khaybar.In Islamic tradition, the chant “Khaybar Khaybar, ya yahud, Jaish Muhammad, sa yahud,” which means, “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning,” is used as a battle cry when attacking Jews or Israelis.It was, for example, chanted on the Mavi Marmara Gaza flotilla ship in May 2010.The show deals with the relationship between the Jews and the Arab tribes of Medina as well as between the Jews of Medina and Khaybar, MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) reported on Wednesday. One Arab media outlet described the film as demonstrating the Jews’ “hostility toward others, their treacherous nature, and their repeated betrayals.”The plot deals with Jews asking Miqdad, an Arab warrior, to fight for them; he refuses to kill women and children and is sent to prison. Another episode, based on Islamic tradition, involves a Jewish woman whose father and brother were killed by Muslims and who tries to get revenge by attempting to poison the prophet.The film was produced by Echo Media, a Qatari company owned by Hashem al-Sayed.
The show is set to air on channels such as Dubai TV, Dream TV (Egypt), Al-Iraqiyya TV, Algerian Channel 3, Atlas TV (Algeria), Qatar TV and UAE TV, according to the MEMRI report.Sameh al-Sereity, one of the main actors in the show, plays Muhammad ibn Maslamah, the bodyguard of the prophet Muhammad. Sereity told an Egyptian newspaper the show portrays the evolution of Jews’ hatred of others.“The hostility between us and the Jews still exists. The hatred is ingrained. Neither Egyptians nor Arabs need this show to justify their hatred of Zionism. The existing struggles between us provide the simplest proof of this,” he said.Another actor, Ahmad Abd al-Halim, said, “I play one of the Jewish characters, who demonstrates the behavior of the Jewish human being. All he thinks about is accumulating money.”The show’s screenwriter, Yusri al-Gindi, said in an interview with Al Jazeera about the series, “The Jews are the Jews. They still act according to their nature, despite the passing generations. They corrupt any society in which they live, and therefore no regime can protect them with any contract or agreement.The crisis in the Arab world offers the best proof of this, and this is where the show gets its current relevance.”He added, “It happened in Babylon, Rome, Imperial Russia and Hitler’s Germany. Later, the West banished them to the Arab region, where they continue to serve it [the West] to this day.”
