Palestinian Actress Fired For Tweets Not Questioning Holocaust

“Our company takes its moral obligations seriously, and will not tolerate any so-called ‘lapse of judgment’ from its employees.”

Ramallah, February 11 – Arab social media erupted with controversy today following the dismissal of a popular cast member from a successful drama series because she had made multiple posts that failed to challenge the historicity of the systematic, industrialized Nazi genocide of Jews in the 1940’s.

Maryam Awad, who played the attractive character of Rashida Halq on the Palestinian drama series ‘Ahawat, Sisters, courted scandal earlier this week with tweets and Instagram content that omitted mention of the Holocaust as a hoax and as a pretext for Zionist despoiling of Palestine and moral justification for perpetrating the same crimes against Palestinians. The Palestinian-Authority-run company that produces the show, Quds Productions, reacted swiftly to the uproar with an announcement today that they had terminated Ms. Awad’s contract, and that further production will employ an understudy, CGI, or script rewrites.

“Maryam Awad no longer works for Quds productions, and will no longer appear in ‘Ahawat,” the statement read. “We apologize to our viewers, to Palestine, and to the wider Arab-Muslim world for the offense she caused with her misdeeds. Our company takes its moral obligations seriously, and will not tolerate any so-called ‘lapse of judgment’ from its employees.” With support from a handful of loyal fans, Awad had sought to defend herself from the accusations by pointing to numerous tweets by other Palestinian and Arab public figures with no apparent Holocaust denial, minimization, exploitation, or inversion, to no avail. Awad’s supporters online found themselves dogpiled in response, with several making their accounts private or deleting them entirely.

‘Ahawat bases itself loosely on the 1990’s American NBC drama Sisters. In the Palestinian version, however, the protagonists do not carry boyish names as a result of a father who wanted boys; all of the women married young and remain faithful, unlike any of the original American characters; and instead of leading upper-middle-class suburban lives with soap-opera concerns, the Palestinian remake ensures that every episode of the three-seasons so far revolves around at least one aspect of oppression, real or imagined, that the characters suffer at the hand of Israel or Israelis. It takes place in the fictional, relatively prosperous town of Ghaniun, south of Jerusalem. Awad attracted positive viewer and critic attention for her sassy portrayal of Rashida, a twentysomething homemaker with a naughty side who taunts her sisters by making lewd remarks about their husbands just out of earshot and implying they have wandering eyes and hands.

Awad’s agent declined to comment for this article, citing threats to his business and family.

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