The “Real” Truth About Palestine video I posted about and rebutted has gone viral. I fully expected this to happen, at least partly because there is a substantial audience willing to soak in the lies, but also because of the appeal of the two young women in the video.
The first of the women appearing in the video is an actress and model by the name of Dana Dajani. According to her LinkedIn profile:
Dana Dajani is a Dubai-based Palestinian performance artist, writer, and founder of The Human Spirit Project. She can be seen performing in English and Arabic films, television series, and commercials across the MENA region, as well as on stage: presenting her original solo performances or acting in theatrical productions. Dana also writes for Dubai’s local arts publication, Quint, and can be spotted around Dubai reciting her poetry with the Poeticians, or collaborating to create Floetry with singer Layla Khodjasteh and various musicians.
She was educated in the US and has performed in Caryl Churchill’s antisemitic play for Gaza “7 Jewish Children.”
What her LinkedIn profile does not mention (but what Professor Google does reveal) is she has also worked as a “model.” Some of her poses could be characterized as “risque,” and would certainly be met with some reprisals by the Hamas-controlled religious police in Gaza.
And this website reveals she was born in Jordan to a “Syrian lawyer-painter and a Palestinian pacifist-engineer,” even though she refers to herself as “Palestinian.”
Of course, for the right price, she will also pass off as an Indian.
The second attractive woman is Lara Sawalha. Can you guess her profession?
Here she is referred to as a “Jordanian” actress. And according to this, her “native” accent is “American”, even though she puts on a British accent in the video (according to that same resume, she can do “Israeli” accents as well, so I assume she would even be willing to play an Israeli for an acting gig).
My point here is not to criticize the women’s choice of profession (although their politics leaves a lot to be desired). It is to show that the organization that put together the video hired a couple of attractive actresses – neither of whom are actually “Palestinian” according to the definition of someone born here – in order to increase the appeal of the video. They even had one of them put on a fake accent, presumably to make her more appealing (in my opinion, it worked!)
None of this surprises me, given the level of authenticity of the arguments they put forward in the video.
