Roughly 200 demonstrators gathered outside the Egyptian Consulate General in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights Monday evening to protest the airing of “Horseman Without a Horse,” a 41-part “historical” Egyptian television series that suggests a Jewish plot for world domination.
“We are here to say to the Egyptian government, ‘You should be ashamed,'” said Rabbi H. David Teitelbaum, executive director of the Board of Rabbis of Northern California, which co-sponsored the demonstration with the Jewish Community Relations Council and the American Jewish Committee.
The series, which began airing Nov. 6, draws on the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a book and alleged blueprint for Jewish global domination, which was used by Nazi Germany. Experts dismiss the document as an anti-Semitic forgery by 19th-century czarist secret who sought to deflect blame for the Russia’s troubles onto Jews.
The activists, gathering on the fourth night of Chanukah, sought to contrast the “darkness” of hate with the “light” of the Jewish holiday, holding candles aloft and singing Chanukah songs.
“We should be home tonight…lighting candles,” said Rabbi Sydney Mintz of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. “But we cannot stay at home when anti-Semitism is broadcast to millions in the Arab world.”
Egypt’s state-run television and several other Arab networks throughout the Middle East began broadcasting “Horseman without a Horse” with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a time that typically draws large television audiences and high advertising rates.
The State Department, members of Congress and a host of Jewish organizations have condemned the program and called on the Egyptian government to pull it off the air. But Egyptian officials have downplayed the role of the “Protocols” in “Horseman” and maintained that the series is not anti-Semitic.
They have also argued that allowing the program to air is a matter of free speech. Monday’s protesters rejected that argument, noting that Egyptian authorities restrict all kinds of speech, including criticism of the government.
“It’s the height of hypocrisy,” said Abby Michelson-Porth, assistant director of the JCRC.
The consulate general did not return calls from the Bulletin.
Before the series aired, a group of eight Jewish leaders from JCRC, the AJCommittee, the Anti-Defamation League and the Board of Rabbis of Northern California wrote a Nov. 1 letter to the S.F.-based consul general, Alaf Elmazariki, condemning “Horseman” and saying that it would diminish Egypt’s historic role as peacemaker in the Middle East.
“We respect your nation and people for showing how peace can be achieved in the Middle East,” the letter read. “Yet, with tensions high in the Middle East, we fail to see how the airing of this blatantly anti-Semitic program could help turn the region away from confrontation. Indeed, just the opposite will result when this series, which is nothing more than an incitement against Jews, is aired.”
The letter requested a meeting with Elmazariki. Yitzhak Santis, JCRC’s director of Middle Eastern affairs, said Jewish leaders did not get a response from the consulate until Tuesday afternoon, the day after the protest. Santis said an aide to Elmazariki called JCRC promising a meeting with Jewish community leaders next week.
“We look forward to such a face-to-face meeting,” said Rabbi Doug Kahn, JCRC executive director.
“Horseman Without a Horse” traces the history of the Middle East from the mid-19th century to 1917. It tells the fictional story of an Egyptian fighting British occupation of the Palestinian mandate, who comes across a book convincing him that Zionists are the true enemy.
Egyptian actor-playwright Muhammed Sobhi, who wrote the series, does not claim that the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is authentic, but he has maintained that Israel has fulfilled many of the plans laid out in the document.
He has expressed no qualms about writing another, similar script. “If this series scares the United States and the Zionist entity, then we will make many more like it,” Sobhi has said.
In recent weeks, Egyptian officials have continued to defend the decision of the government’s Ministries of Culture and Information to allow the program to air, but added a disclaimer to the broadcast in mid-November stating that “the events that are portrayed are created by the author even when it presents real figures.”
The disclaimer also holds that “the series is not aimed at proving the truth of what is called the book of the ‘Protocols,’ whose truth has not been proven historically.”