A new Egyptian TV series is making Israel lose its temper

Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday condemned a new Egyptian TV series that predicts its destruction in the year 2120.

According to a Foreign Ministry statement, the series “is completely unacceptable especially because the two states (Egypt and Israel) have had a peace treaty for the past 41 years.”

After 1973 War Victory when Egypt fought and restored its lands – Sinai and Canal cities – from Israel, the two countries reached a peace treaty in 1979 and since then they have worked closely on security issues, especially near their shared border in the Sinai Peninsula.

However, public opinion in Egypt has remained largely against having normalised relations with Israel.

Named “El-Nehaya” — Arabic for “The End” — the Egyptian series is about a computer engineer living in a dystopian future dominated by cyborg clones. It’s one of the many dramas and soap operas that air each night during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began on April 24.

In the first episode, the series showed a teacher telling a class of students about “the war to liberate Jerusalem,” which he said occurred less than 100 years after Israel’s founding in 1948. The teacher said Jews in Israel “ran away and returned to their countries of origin” in Europe, without mentioning what happened to Jews in Israel whose families came from other Middle Eastern countries — almost half the Jewish population.

The teacher further said that “the war ended quickly and brought about the destruction of the Zionist State of Israel less than 100 years after its establishment.”

A holographic map of a divided U.S. was also shown, with the teacher saying that “America was the central supporter of the Zionist state.”

There was no immediate comment from the Egyptian government in response to the Israeli foreign ministry statement.

The series is produced by Synergy Group, one of Egypt’s largest production companies with strong links with the government. It airs on the ON television network, which is owned by a pro-government company.

Speaking to The Associated Press, series’ writer Amr Samir Atif said 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.”