Egyptian media upset over Israeli 2nd graders singing about Passover

Egyptian media on Thursday got hold of a shocking video.

Popular Egyptian site Youm7, as well as other media outlets, say that this is a video of Jewish extremist children who are being taught that they were slaves in Egypt - and that they must return to Egypt.

Here's the offensive video, of the second grade class  in the Binyan Olam school, singing songs about and play-acting the Passover story. (It's a pretty bad video. You can skip the first 1:10 of musical introduction to get to the other five minutes of watching kids repeat songs and verses they memorized.)



And here's how Youm7 describes this video:

Jewish extremist Rabbi Eliyahu Yisraeli published a video clip on YouTube of a group of Jewish children, students in one of the Jewish "yeshiva" schools. They do rituals to commemorate the holiday of Passover, where they are celebrating the anniversary of the Exodus from Egypt.

The video clip shows the young children on a trip to a village located on the Sea of Galilee, which was created to serve as a model of what was experienced by the children of Israel in Egypt, since Moses split the sea and took the children of Israel out from Egypt.

The video shows the children reading some passages from the distorted books of the Torah which tell the full stories of the children of Israel, and it used the word "slavery" in a reference to Egypt.

It presents to the children during their studies in the "yeshiva" the extent of the suffering experienced by both the children of Israel during the era of Pharaoh, and the miracles of God known in the Torah as the "ten plagues" in addition to the years of wandering in the Sinai.

Israeli extremist Jewish schools in this video indicate their incitement of hate for Egypt and Egyptians, saying that it was the land of bondage, and the Jews must return to Egypt again because it is a religious duty.

The last phrase, that Jewish children are being taught that they must return to Egypt, is the headline in every version of this article.

Almost certainly that ridiculous interpretation is a result of a couple of stories in Egyptian media last year. One was that a Muslim Brotherhood leader said that (after Israel is replaced with an Arab state) Jews should be allowed to return to Egypt. He was mercilessly attacked for months afterwards, and the idea still rankles Egyptians, worried that the Jews might sue them for the huge amount of land and capital that were stolen from them when they were expelled.

Another crazy but related rumor in late 2012 was that US ambassador Anne Patterson said that DNA evidence showed that Jews owned Egypt, King Tut was Jewish and by the end of 2013 Egypt would be under total control of the Jews.

One other fact that might be making the Egyptians so nervous about Jews taking over Egypt: It says so in the Quran! Chapter 44, verse 28, has been interpreted to say

Thus (it was)! And We made other people inherit them (i.e. We made the Children of Israel to inherit the kingdom of Egypt).

Given that Egyptians are so sensitive to the idea of Jews returning to and taking over Egypt, that fiction is apparently what is fueling so much interest in this video. Egyptians believe that Jews want to rule over their country  - and they think that these second graders' songs about the Passover story prove it.