by Dr. Areej Hussain
Yet nowhere you would find The New Arab article mentioning this part of the drama, which was the main message of this episode…
The biased pro-Muslim Brotherhood Qatari newspaper The New Arab (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed) plays an extremely hypocritical role in falsely claiming that the Saudi drama Series Exit 7 aired in Ramadan defends homosexuality and attacked Palestinians and encouraged normalization with Israel.
The New Arab (العربي الجديد) headquartered in London was first launched in March 2014 by an Israeli ex-parliament member Dr. Azmi Bishra as an Arabic online news website by Qatari company Fadaat Media which was later established as a daily newspaper. An English version of the website The New Arab was inaugurated shortly after the newspaper’s launch.
Ever since this news outlet is on its mission by fabricated news and misinterpreting the news to deceive its vast majority of non-Arab audience, in order to reach their goals to kindle the fire of rivalry between Arabs and Muslims, especially against Saudis and its allied Arab nations.
Anyone who knows Arabic and watched the episodes knows very well that The New Arab is lying and producing fake news to work on their agenda which is opposite to what they claim that they are speaking on the behalf of Arabs.
Defending Homosexuality?
The New Arab states, “In a scene broadcast on Saudi MBC channel’s ‘Exit 7’, two of the main characters discussed the topic of homosexuality, with one defending the rights of the LGBTQ community.”
In an actual fact, the serial shows a conversation between actress Aseel Omran, the daughter, and actor Nasser Al-Qasabi, the father in which the daughter has clear doubts about homosexuality and her father’s approach was that the homosexuals should be punished. In stating so The New Arab (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed) purposely fails to the answering.
The script goes like this, the daughter asks “if you are a believer of human rights, then you would have to accept that these are humans who have rights, they are living their lives and we have no business [criticizing them]. Are they not humans?”
The father replies, “Of course not, they are not humans. Allahu Akbar!! As long as they are going against the nature that Allah has created them with, they are not humans.”
Then, she asks again, “How are we to judge, maybe they have psychological issues?”
He says, “Whether they have psychological problems or plague, they must seek treatment. And if they don’t find a treatment then practice abstinence, but going out and being proud of it and bragging about it is immoral and promiscuous. And if the people started to follow them, that’s a totally different topic”.
She continues to question, “But they didn’t ask anyone to follow them”.
The father continues with his wise approach, “My daughter if they started to promote their culture [of homosexuality], shameful things will happen. If people started to notice it, accept it and look at it as if it was a normal thing, and then the whole humanity with be destroyed”.
After watching the entire episode and understanding it one can unmistakably see that main character Nasser Al-Qasabi, the father clears out all the doubts his daughter has regarding homosexuals and gives highly satisfying answers that are in accordance with the Arab and Muslim society and the Islamic culture.
It was clear from this episode that the message given by the drama series Exit 7 is loud and clear that it doesn’t approve of homosexuality let alone defending it contrary to what The New Arab (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed) depicts.
Furthermore, The New Arab continues with its agenda in trying to misguide their English speaking audience by painting a pleasant picture of the Turkish president, Rajab Tayab Erdogan as true believer of Islam, and Caliph of Muslims by stating that since he “defended a top religious official who claimed homosexuality caused diseases, corrupted people and condemned in Islamic teaching.”
However, the article fails to answer posed questions by the minds of the readers that if the Othman Caliph Erdogan is pious as proclaims in his highly charged speeches, then why doesn’t he abolish the laws under which the gay marriage and changing one’s sex is legal in Turkey?
Normalization with Israel?
“This entire episode was a clear attempt to normalize the audience’s minds over Israel” is another false accusation made by The New Arab.
The conversations between the two friends goes on like this:
The main character, Nasser Al-Qasabi says, “You are saying that you want to do business with Israelis while they are our enemies?
Rashid Al-Shamrani, playing the friend of the main character, says, “The enemy is the one who doesn’t stand by you and curses you day and night more than the Israelis. We lost lives . . . we fought wars . . .we cut oil supply. . . for the sake of Palestine and the day it became an authority, we paid its salaries even though we [the Saudi people] were in need of this money. Yet they take every opportunity to attack Saudi Arabia.”
Nasser Al-Qasabi replies, “Don’t confuse different issues, the five fingers are not the same! As the Palestinians who were forced to leave their land in 1948 and were exposed to the brutal killings, there were those who sold their lands to the Israelis. Likewise, there were Palestinians in the Intifada who faced the Israeli tanks with their chests opened, there are those who are building the separation wall. The Palestinians are humans like all the other nationalities; there are amongst them good and there are those who are bad, there are those who are grateful and there are those who are faithful, and there are those who are deluded, and those who are well aware [of reality]. The reality is that the Israel is the one who is creating the animosity between Palestinians and the rest of the Arabs. We will stand with the truth, our principles and conscience.”
Once again, The New Arab gives a totally different version of the entire episode by lying that the drama leads towards advocating the “Israeli normalization in ‘new’ Saudi Arabic”.
But in reality, as the main character (Nasser Al-Qasabi) debates with his friend (Rashid Al-Shamrani) by defending Palestinians that they are just humans like us even if they made mistakes in the past, we should not give up on our principles, our beliefs and the truth that Palestine belongs to Palestinians. Yet nowhere you would find The New Arab article mentioning this part of the drama, which was the main message of this episode.
The New Arab claims that, “Saudi Twitter users were left outraged this week”.
However the reality is totally the opposite, many twitter users say that it presented the right point of view of the current situation not what Qatari based News paper claims. And has a lot of respect of who played a devil’s advocate in the episode in order to teach people their right concept regarding Palestine.
For instance, Qasim al Qasim tweeted, “What distinguishes Rashed al-Shamrani that he has a Doctorate in Psychology and he focuses on playing the role of real life examples through his knowledge and profession”.
ما يميز #راشد_الشمراني دكتوراة في علم النفس.!!
— قاسم القاسم (@QaAlQasim) May 9, 2020
يركز على الأدوار السيكلوجيه للناس.!!
فأخذها علم ومهنه.!! pic.twitter.com/cGpYZw0JYF
A twitter verified Saudi-handle of Khalf Al-Harbi stated that, “Whoever watches the third episode of Exit 7, will complete understand easily that it is against normalization and that the able-artist Rashid Al-Shamrani was playing the role of a fraudulent opportunist, but the channel that received the Israeli Prime Minister Peres and wandering in its corridors wants to throw its blame and disgrace over its opponents”.
من يشاهد الحلقة الثالثة من #مخرج_7 كاملة يفهم بسهولة أنها ضد التطبيع وأن الفنان القدير راشد الشمراني كان يقوم بدور الانتهازي المحتال ولكن القناة التي استقبلت رئيس الوزراء الاسرائيلي بيريز وتجول في ردهاتها تريد أن ترمي بلاويها وعارها على خصومها
— خلف الحربي (@khalaf_h) April 29, 2020
#خلايا_عزمي https://t.co/xEmOV2IyvQ
Another Saudi twitter handle of Saleh Al-Kharashi tweeted, “Al Jazeera and the Muslim Brotherhood are making a big fuss about the actor Rashid Al-Shamrani’s statement on the issue of Palestine and Israel, he digs out the old picture of Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas kissing the hand of an Israeli soilder, he questions ‘what does this picture mean to the people of Palestinian resistance?'”
الجنزيرة والاخوان مسويين حفلة علشان كلام الممثل راشد الشمراني عن موضوع فلسطين واسرائيل. وطلعو كل الشرف.
— م. صالح الخراشي (@saleh1u1) April 29, 2020
من فوائد نبش الصور القديمة، وجدت هذه الصورة لهنية “ابو عبارة شهيد القدس” يقبل يد بكل ولاء وذل لجندي اسرائيلي صغير.
مامعنى هذا الصورة وتعبيرها عند جمهور المكاومة؟ pic.twitter.com/iewH5ISISU
Dr. Areej Hussain is specialized in Arabic Studies from the American university of Cairo.
