BEIRUT, Lebanon Oct. 29 — A TV channel run by the Hezbollah guerrilla group is offering viewers something special during the Muslim holy month: a miniseries about Israel's founding that Israel and the United States are denouncing as anti-Semitic propaganda.
"Al-Shatat," Arabic for "The Diaspora," is airing nightly on the Al-Manar satellite channel during Ramadan, when religious sentiment runs high. Television viewership also runs high, and stations trot out their best programs making the season the equivalent of sweeps month in the United States.
The series offers al-Manar's view of "the stages of the Zionist movement ... how it was able to affect the decision-making centers in Europe and establish the Zionist entity in Palestine by criminal and dirty means," according to a statement from the station.
The U.S. State Department says it borrows from the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a 19th-century anti-Semitic tract.
Al-Manar is known for airing diatribes against Israel and video of the Lebanese Hezbollah attacking Israeli soldiers. It commissioned a Syrian company to produce the series, which debuted Monday.
In one episode, Jews speak of a global Jewish government. In one scene, a diseased prostitute in a European brothel run by a Jewish madam says she doesn't want any Jewish customers because she doesn't want to infect them implying that she would willingly infect non-Jews.
