LOS ANGELES: Not long ago, the Egyptian heart surgeon-turned-comedian Bassem Youssef was hosting the most popular political satire television show in his country’s history.
Launched after the 2011 uprising ousted former president Hosni Mubarak from power, the groundbreaking “Al Bernameg” (The Show) drew as many as 30 million viewers per episode in a country of 82 million people — until it folded and Youssef left the country.
Now his story is chronicled in a documentary titled “Tickling Giants,” which premieres on Friday in Los Angeles. He also has a new memoir out called “Revolution for Dummies.”
Dubbed Egypt’s Jon Stewart, Youssef ignored all the rules governing the state-controlled media, lampooning politicians from across the spectrum and providing a much-needed dose of humor as the country was undergoing massive political turmoil.
But his mockery proved too much for the country’s new rulers — first the Muslim Brotherhood-led regime of Muhammad Mursi, elected president after Mubarak’s downfall, and then the current president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who ousted Mursi.
After “El Bernameg” folded in 2014, Youssef left Egypt with his family, first heading to Dubai before settling in Los Angeles.
“There are many people, especially Egyptians, who will watch this movie and they will consider it... a story of a very important period of history for them,” the exiled 43-year-old comedian told AFP in an interview.
He praised the film’s director Sara Taksler — a longtime producer on “The Daily Show,” formerly hosted by Youssef’s idol Jon Stewart — for managing to use comedy and satire to capture the upheaval of the Arab Spring in Egypt and explaining it to Western audiences without lecturing.
“Most importantly, this is a human story.”
Despite the silencing of his show, Youssef takes pride in knowing that “Al Bernameg” helped spur debate, offering a conduit through which viewers expressed their frustrations with the political system.
“The show gave people a motivation to speak their mind through comic memes, funny sketches on YouTube or on the Internet, so people kind of found their voice,” he says.
“I think we have opened the door to many people to come forward and do something that was not even imaginable before.”
As for his new life, Youssef acknowledges that it has been difficult to adjust, especially because his arrival in the United States coincided with one of the most acrimonious presidential campaigns ever.
“You have all these jokes about me leaving a dictator for someone who is trying to become one,” he said, referring to US President Donald Trump.
“But however horrible Trump is, you still have faith in the institutions that can actually hold him back.”
Taksler says following Youssef for three years chronicling his story against the backdrop of the Arab Spring has given her a new sense of appreciation about the importance of free speech.
“When we were making ‘Tickling Giants,’ I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a president who was so sensitive to jokes and now we have the tiniest taste of that,” she said. “I can’t imagine what Bassem’s team felt like dealing with the repercussions.”
Looking forward, Youssef says he is reviewing his options as he reinvents himself in America.
“This is a very tough market, it’s Hollywood and there are people who are even more experienced than I am who are struggling,” he said. “It’s an adventure, it is something that is interesting and terrifying at the same time.”
Still, he says he wouldn’t trade the jokes for a return to heart surgery.
“If I hadn’t embarked on this journey, I wouldn’t be sitting here with a big poster with my face on it and a documentary about me,” he said.
“All I did was crack jokes and I have more media attention than any heart surgeon in my field, which is a little bit unfair. But this is life.”
New documentary on Egypt’s Jon Stewart follows Arab Spring turmoil
New documentary on Egypt’s Jon Stewart follows Arab Spring turmoil
Retouched images of Israel’s first lady, distributed by the state, ignite a fiery ethics debate
- Since the manipulation of images was revealed, the government has taken the unprecedented step of crediting Sara Netanyahu in its releases that include manipulated images
JERUSALEM: The photos seemed destined for posterity in Israel’s state archives.
In the snapshots, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is joined by his wife, Sara, as well as US Ambassador Mike Huckabee and a group of Israeli soldiers, as they light Hannukah candles at Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews pray. The leaders exchange triumphant looks.
But something is off.
Sara Netanyahu’s skin is poreless, her eyes overly defined and her hair perfectly coiffed — a look officials acknowledge is the result of heavy retouching.
Critics say the issue isn’t the use of photo-editing software, which is common on the social media accounts of celebrities and public figures. They say it’s the circulation of the images in official government announcements, which distorts reality, violates ethical codes and risks compromising official archiving and record-keeping efforts.
“All the pictures to this day in the archives in Israel are authentic pictures of reality as it was captured by the lenses of photographers’ cameras since the establishment of the state,” said Shabi Gatenio, the veteran political journalist who broke the story in The Seventh Eye, an Israeli site that covers local media. “These images, if entered into the database, will forever infect it with a virtual reality that never existed.”
Since the manipulation of images was revealed, the government has taken the unprecedented step of crediting Sara Netanyahu in its releases that include manipulated images. And it’s not clear if official archive will include images of her taken during the second half of last year, when Gatenio said the editing appears to have begun.
The first lady’s personal spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Nitzan Chen, director of the Government Press Office, told The Associated Press that images of the prime minister are never manipulated and that his office would not upload any retouched photos to the official archive.
Personal Photoshop habit enters political realm
Sara Netanyahu, 67, has long used photo-editing software on her images. Her social media account is filled with images in which her face appears heavily retouched.
But the topic raised eyebrows since her Photoshop habit entered the public record.
Gatenio said he first noticed this last July, when the couple visited President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., and again in September, as Sara Netanyahu joined her husband on the tarmac ahead of a trip to New York for the UN General Assembly.
At the time, the prime minister’s office released a video of the send-off along with a photo, credited to Avi Ohayon, an official government photographer.
Comparing the photo to the raw video, Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley, said the image had been post-processed, bearing local manipulations to smooth the first lady’s skin and remove wrinkles.
Since then, photos showing the first lady meeting with Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha, in Washington also appear to have been retouched, Farid said.
“There’s been some Photoshop editing to — let’s call it — ‘beautify,’ lighten, smooth the face,” Farid said.
“Is it nefarious? No. Is it a problem? Yes. This is about something bigger than, ‘she Photoshopped her face to make herself look younger.’ This is about trust. Why should I trust any official photo coming out of that administration?”
Chen, the head of the Government Press Office, said office lawyers are trying to determine how to handle and properly identify photos “processed by people other than GPO photographers.”
He said the Justice Ministry is also examining the “criteria, limitations and possibilities” of the edited images, though he stressed there is nothing illegal about touching up photos. The issue, he said, is being transparent when such changes are made.
For now, his office has decided to add Sara Netanyahu’s name to press releases that include retouched images. Since November, press releases showing photos of her smiling next to Trump and the family of the last hostage in Gaza in Washington, visiting a Miami synagogue and attending a funeral for an Israeli mayor have included this label.
At least one outlet, the Times of Israel, has said it will no longer carry official state photos that appear to have been manipulated. The Associated Press does not publish images that appear to have been retouched or digitally manipulated.
A broader phenomenon
Chen said the prime minister is never edited: “No Photoshop, no corrections, no color. Nothing.”
While his face may not be retouched, the prime minister’s official Instagram account tells another story.
The page has posted a bevy of content that appears to be AI-edited or generated, including a picture of the couple with Trump and first lady Melania Trump celebrating the new year in Washington.
The photo raised suspicions in Israel because it shows Sara Netanyahu wearing a black dress absent from other photos of the event, where she wore a dark red frock. Appearing in the sky above the couples are brightly colored fireworks and American and Israeli flags that Farid said were “almost certainly” generated by AI.
It is now marked with a tag on Instagram indicating that it may have been altered or generated using AI. It is not clear when the tag was added nor by whom.
Netanyahu is not alone. Many world figures, including Trump, use AI-generated image manipulation frequently in their public output.
Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, who runs the “Democracy in the Digital Age Program,” at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank, called it “part of the populist playbook” and said there was “no question” that Netanyahu was emulating how Trump uses the technology.
Netanyahu’s official Instagram has posted video of Trump and Netanyahu in a B-2 bomber that appears entirely AI-generated. It is captioned “on our victory lap,” referencing the joint Israel-US attacks on Iran last year.
“This is exactly what Netanyahu and his surrounding circle have tried to do for many years,” she said. “Presenting himself as a superhero, his wife as a supermodel, their family as a super loyal family. Even when it wasn’t the case, even at the expense of actual political work, administrative work and social work.”
She said Israel has reached a critical point in official government record-keeping and communications.
“The question of archiving the truth, archiving history, will be one of the questions of our time.”
