TV show ‘Homeland’ irks Lebanese, Israelis

 This undated image released by Showtime shows actor Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison in a scene from the second season of “Homeland,” filmed in Israel. The scene from a recent episode of the hit series is supposed to be Beirut — but it was shot in Tel Aviv, Israel, which has some people irritated in both cities.

Bassem Mroue and Elizabeth A. Kennedy
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BEIRUT — Militants carry­ing assault weapons clear the area around a street, shouting in Arabic for people to get out of the way. A jeep pulls up: The world’s No. 1 jihadi has arrived for a meeting with top Hezbollah commanders. On rooftops, U.S. snipers crouch unseen, the kingpin in their crosshairs at last.

The scene, from a recent episode of the hit U.S. Show­time series “Homeland,” is supposed to be Beirut. But it is really in Israel, a country sim­ilar enough in some areas to stand in for Lebanon, yet a world away in most other respects. The show about Arab terrorists and American turncoats has inadvertently become a tale of two cities. Some Beirutis are angry because the depiction of their city as swarming with militia­men is misleading and because they see Israel as the enemy. And in Israel, some are peeved that Haifa and even Tel Aviv — a self-styled nightlife capital and high-tech hub — apparently appear, to out­siders at least, to be Middle Eastern after all.

Lebanese Tourism Minister Fadi Abboud told The Associ­ated Press on Thursday that he’s so upset about the por­trayal of Beirut that he’s con­sidering a lawsuit.

“The information minister is studying media laws to see what can be done,” he said.

Abboud pointed to the scene with the snipers. Hamra Street in West Beirut is por­trayed as a hotbed of violence, but it is actually a lively neigh­borhood packed with cafes, book shops and pubs.

“It showed Hamra Street with militia roaming in it. This does not reflect reality,” he said. “It was not filmed in Beirut and does not portray the real image of Beirut.”

Twentieth Century Fox Television refused to com­ment.

Several Lebanese inter­viewed by the AP said they have never heard of the show. When a reporter described the plot and said it was shot in Israel, the reactions ranged from anger to blithe accept­ance that filmmaking is an imperfect art.

Hamed Moussa, an engi­neering student at the Ameri­can University of Beirut, said it’s not a problem that Israelis are portraying Lebanese. In fact, he said, Lebanese often play Israeli characters in Lebanese soap operas.

But Ghada Jaber, a 60-year­old housewife, said Israel should never stand in for Lebanon.

“It is very insulting,” she said as she walked along Hamra Street. “Israel destroyed our country. Israel invaded and occupied our country.”

A glimpse into the decades of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim pro-Israeli propaganda aimed at Americans and world audiences put out by Zionists at Fox Studios.