In an August 10, 2015 interview on the Egyptian ON TV channel, filmmaker Khalef Yousuf said that the Jews were behind the failure of Egyptian films at the Cannes film festival. They would buy up all the tickets and then leave the movie theater in droves, in order to get the press to give the film bad reviews, he said. "The same thing happened at the advent of Islam," said Yousuf.
Following are Excerpts:
Khaled Yousuf: "We are constantly being told in Europe and everywhere that we have a terrorist religion. 'How come?' we ask. 'Not because of ISIS,' they say. 'When someone leaves your religion, you say that you must cut off his head. So your religion is a terrorist religion.' We try to explain and make them understand, but to no avail. According to their mentality, such a thing is illogical. This also runs counter to what we were taught as children: 'Whoever wills, let him believe, and whoever wills, let his disbelieve.'"
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"I am not a religious scholar so I might be wrong, but as far as I know, the Jews would join Islam in its early days, when the entire Muslim community numbered 300-400 people. The Jews would join Islam in droves, 20 or 30 at a time, and two days later, they would leave it, saying: it's not for us. This way, they undermine the faith of the believers. This was the birth of the idea that whoever joins Islam should do so wholeheartedly. By the way, the Jews are still doing this to us, even in cinema. When we would go to the Cannes Festival, they would try to make the Egyptian film fail. They tried to make the press give it bad reviews. So they would buy up all the tickets to the movie theater. That way, you would get the impression that the place was packed. Yes, when you went in, you would see that there was a full house. Five minutes later, the first twenty would get up and leave. Ten minutes later, another group of 30 or 40 would also leave. By the time a third of the film was over, the theater would be empty. What would the press say? The film was a disaster and everybody left in the middle. The same thing happened at the advent of Islam."