Israel is almost completely destroyed and millions of Jews slaughtered in the Egyptian science fiction drama El-Nehaya.
The program, which has seen high ratings in Egypt and across the Islamic world, was denounced by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs who hit out at the producers of the series for portraying the destruction of the state of Israel and the disintegration of the United States.
El-Nehaya, which means “The End,” is set in 2120 in a dystopian world dominated by cyborg clones.
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In one scene in the first episode, a teacher tells his students about the “war to liberate Jerusalem,” which leads to the destruction of Israel before the state reaches the centenary of its founding.
El-Nehaya is being broadcast during the holy month of Ramadan, a peak time for newly produced series to air on TV.
Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the series “is completely unacceptable especially because the two states have had a peace treaty for the past 41 years,”
Egypt and Israel had fought four major wars before signing a peace treaty in 1979.
The controversial drama is produced by Synergy, one of Egypt’s biggest production companies, and broadcast on the privately owned ON and Al-Hayat television networks.
It was directed by Yasser Samy and written by Amro Samir Atif and revolves around the story of a computer engineer who sets out to rescue humanity from an energy disaster that will hit the world in 2120.
In El-Nehaya, humans share the future with robots, drones and cyborg clones.
‘War to liberate Jerusalem’
El-Nehaya has successfully attracted a wide audience since its first episode aired on Friday.
In a scene in the first episode denounced by the Israeli government, the engineer tells a class of students he is teaching about changes in the balance of power across the world in the middle of the 21st century.
He shows a holographic map of a divided and destroyed United States of America, telling his students that the US, once a unified country, started to disintegrate into entities in the north and south after prolonged wars.
“America was the central supporter of the Zionist state,” the teacher tells his students.
With the US disintegrating, the teacher then explains how Arab states seized the opportunity to get rid of its “fierce enemy,” Israel.
“The war started, and it was called the war to liberate Jerusalem… it ended quickly with the destruction of the Israeli Zionist state, before 100 years passed on the date of its establishment. The majority of Israeli Jews ran away and returned to their countries of origin,” says the show’s protagonist, without explaining why those Jews had originally left Europe. It’s assumed the remaining Jews were slaughtered by advancing Arab forces.
Israel reunited Jerusalem after 1967 war after 20 years of division prompted by the Jordanian occupation of Samaria and Judea and what was then called East Jerusalem.
El-Nehaya’s writer Amr Samir Atif told the Associated Press that the destruction of Israel “is a possible future in the absence of real peace and true stability in the region… Peace should be based on justice.”
The show’s writer, Amr Samir Atif, told The Associated Press that the destruction of Israel “is a possible future in the absence of real peace and true stability in the region. … Peace should be based on justice.”
In recent years, Israeli officials have publicly praised security cooperation with al-Sissi’s government. Israel has granted Egypt permission to deploy troops, armor and helicopter gunships close to the Israeli border to fight militants there. The 1979 peace treaty limited the number or troops and type of weapons Egypt can have in the area without Israeli consent.
When al-Sissi was asked in a 2018 interview if Egypt’s cooperation with Israel was the closest ever, he replied: “That is correct. … We have a wide range of cooperation with the Israelis.”
Since taking office in 2014, al-Sissi has met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at least twice.
–Metro Voice and wire services
