Land of Israel activist Noam Federman has filed a suit against Channel 2 television, Keshet, and Israel's most popular comedy show Eretz Nehederet for a skit that portrayed Jewish residents of the Hevron region as fanatical, sadistic, Arab-hating, killer hillbillies. The skit used Federman's name on the closing credits, falsely naming him as the writer and director of the episode.
Although the show is clearly satirical, that fact should not allow it to use distasteful stereotypes and to go so far as to resemble anti-Semitic propaganda, Federman argued in his lawsuit. It also does not justify libel, he said.
Even if every single viewer of the show understood that he was not the actual writer of the episode, the fact that Eretz Nehederet claimed him as the writer still has negative repercussions, Federman contended.
Federman, the son of Holocaust survivors, said he was particularly disturbed by the way the “Hevron residents” in the sketch shouted “Nazi” and “Hitler” whenever somebody upset them. He noted that he has always taken care to avoid using the term “Nazi” to describe his opponents.
The sketch also depicted the mother of the family using an Arab man as an ironing board, and then hanging clothing on his arms. The father describes beating up an Arab salesman, while the family prepares acid to pour on soldiers. The grandfather shoots two Arabs and a soldier during the skit.
The above depictions of Hevron's Jews are libelous even if they are labeled comedy, Federman claimed, and give local Jews, himself included, a bad name. Viewers will be led to believe that Jews living in and near Hevron are racist and treat Arabs as objects, he said.
In his suit, Federman mentioned his well-known political beliefs, which include the belief that Arabs should be removed from the land of Israel. However, he wrote, he does not believe that Arabs should be treated as inferior or abused, as suggested in the skit.
Shortly after the skit was first aired in March of this year, Federman said he was “deeply disturbed” by the film, which he compared to anti-Semitic propaganda from the mid-twentieth century. Federman said he planned to sue, but needed to gather material first.
Federman and his family are residents of the Hevron area. Their home outside the city of Kiryat Arba was destroyed several months before the show was aired and the Federman family was violently evicted, in an incident that gained nationwide publicity.