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He Hates Israel, Too

(Egypt Today) Yasmin Moll - Shaaban Abdel Rahim's new album has attracted attention both at home in Egypt and abroad, especially since a video-clip of one of the album's tracks - graphically depicting Israeli leader Ariel Sharon as a vampiresque-thug - began airing on private satellite channels. The middle-aged singer came into the national spotlight in 2001 with his hit song, "I Hate Israel," and since then has become a regular fixture at the five-star weddings of Egypt's elite. The real man behind the message, however, is not the illiterate Shaaban, but Islam Khalil, an Arabic teacher at an elementary school who has been writing lyrics for Shaaban since 1991. Khalil says: "If I got anyone off the street and told him to sing "I Hate Israel," he would have been a success like Shaaban. In Shaaban's latest release, "Uncle Arab," not only does he forcefully criticize the U.S. and Israel, he also mounts a scathing indictment of the Arabs' collective failure to respond properly to the "Busharon" threat.
2004-05-06 00:00:00
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