Alwaght- The Saudi MBC network that is active in films and entertainment industry and in recent years with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's reforms has found a broader space for activity and expansion and gained extinguished place in the Arab world recently announced a plan to air an Israeli docuseries.
Calling the purchase of the right to air the series another Saudi step to normalization, the Jerusalem Post reported that Cassandra's Prophecy airs on MBC's streaming platform.
Kan news network of Israeli regime in a report held that this is the first time the right to air an Israeli series is given to a Saudi network.
Middle East Eye reported that the series is available on the MBC’s streaming service Shahid.
MBC, which has very close relations with the ruling family despite denial by the Saudi officials, has earlier taken steps that proved regionally controversial. It aired a series named Omar Farouk that drew Al-Azhar and even Saudi scholars’ opposition. A similar historical series of it titled Mu’awiya also turned controversial.
The story of Cassandra's Prophecy
According to what is obtained from the general plot of the Israeli documentary film, Cassandra's Prophecy relates a 10-year joint operation of the Mossad and the US Drug Enforcement Administration under ‘Project Cassandra’ to counter what is alleged to be the activity of drug cartels and related money laundering networks linked to Lebanon’s Hezbollah in Latin America and West Africa and then entry into the European and American markets.
The docuseries concludes that the 2015 Iran nuclear deal under President Barack Obama obstructed the DEA mission. This series shows open criticism of the US government and especially the Obama administration. In March, the Israeli entertainment company Bartner announced that this series will soon be aired on ZDF in Germany, Arte in France and CBC in Canada.
The debate on the nature of art, especially television as the most popular and moneymaking medium, and its mission has a long history, with critics suggesting that show industry is instrumentalized by the governments. They take examples of the relations between the Hollywood and the White House and, indeed, the influential Zionist lobbies in the US. There are not few movies and series that serve the idea of Zionism, playing victim, and the Zionist narrative of the historical events, like the World War II that have been successful to attract global viewership. Films like Schindler’s List, The Pianist, and Auschwitz are good examples.
Concerning Cassandra's Prophecy, what is related to the viewers is actually under a political project with the following goals:
1. Reversing Israeli defeats using art and cinema
The back-to-back defeats from the Axis of Resistance has for years shattered the legend of Israeli army's invincibility in the mind of the Arab public, and now even the Israeli political and military officials openly admit incapability in the face of the Resistance camp, especially Hezbollah Movement of Lebanon. Still, defeat of enemy is always an attractive theme and scenario for films and computer games that are aimed at building unity, rebuilding national confidence and pride, and legendizing military capabilities. Security is vital for Israel, an occupying regime that struggles with war and immigration for survival. Therefore, highlighting the capabilities of the Mossad and the regime's security forces against Hezbollah comes to assure the public opinion.
2. Destigmatization of normalization
In recent years, the behind-the-scenes relationship of some Persian Gulf Arab countries with the Israeli regime have become overt. Meanwhile, the news about buying an Israeli series for airing on a Saudi platform seems to be meant to prepare the public for gradual approval of the normalization through destigmatization.
Last year, Saudi Arabia and Oman for the first time openly joined naval exercises with the presence of Israel.
Also, last June, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen during a one-day secret visit to Saudi Arabia discussed with the Crown Prince bin Salman the permission for direct commercial flights from the occupied territories to the Arab kingdom.
Unofficial relations of Riyadh with the Israeli government have given the Palestinians the conviction that the Arab monarchies in their official policy are burying the Palestinian dream to form an independent state.
This conviction grew deeper when MBC ceased airing a popular historical drama about Palestine shortly after 2020 normalization deal between Israeli government and the UAE and then Bahrain.
The series depicted the story of a Palestinian family and their struggle for survival over four decades, beginning with the British mandate of Palestine in the 1930s.
However, a massive social media campaign against MBC's move eventually led to the rerun of the Palestinian series to airing.
The prominent Saudi network has repeatedly done such moves in the past years. In 2020, MBC aired a Kuwaiti series, Um Haron, relating story of a Jewish woman of Ottoman roots that after several-year life in Iran and then Iraq resides in Bahrain. She works as an obstetrician, until the formation of the Israeli regime and migration of the Jews from across the world to the occupied Palestinian territories. This series implies that the Jews are excommunicated and subjected to oppression in the Arab community due to their religion, and in fact seeks to change Arab public’s view of the Israeli occupation.
3. Blackening Hezbollah and whitewashing Mossad
Media blackening of Iran and Hezbollah as archenemies of the Israeli regime is certainly another aim of producers of this so-called docuseries in a bid to counter the growing prestige of Hezbollah in the Arab world. After all, back-to-back defeats from Hezbollah have turned its chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah into an Arab champion who has alone managed to beat the Israeli army.
This growing Hezbollah popularity is something unacceptable to Hezbollah either. In recent years, Riyadh worked with Washington to interfere in Lebanon to build up pressures on Hezbollah.
By linking to Hezbollah the trafficking network from Latin America to Europe, the Israelis are seeking to influence the Arab public and align them with Tel Aviv actions against the Lebanese resistance movement. Similar actions were taken against Hezbollah by Britain that blacklisted the movement in 2019.
On the other hand, there are efforts by the producers of Cassandra's Prophecy to whitewash the hellish intelligence agency Mossad that is notorious for terror, torture, spying, systemic human and arms trafficking, and a number of other violations and crimes against the Palestinians and people of the region. This attempt is aimed at influencing the regional public opinion and depicting the security cooperation of pro-normalization Arab countries with Tel Aviv as serving peaceful purposes.
