Yaqubian Building is a movie produced by an Egyptian production agency. It is under attack from a right-wing Israeli who says the movie would adversely affect Israeli-Egyptian relations. After all this relationship, he says, is based on formalities rather than genuine cooperation. The right-wing Israeli has attacked not only the movie’s producer Alaa Al-Aswany and the actors but everyone associated with the production.

The weird thing is that this Israeli right-winger is spending time attacking an Egyptian movie rather than trying to solve his country’s many problems including racism. Israel’s growing unemployment, and criminal gangs are of no concern to him, not to say anything of problems like drug trafficking and money laundering.

But what is exactly the story of Yaqubian Building?

It’s a story about a huge building that is located in the center of the Egyptian capital, Cairo. An Armenian named Qabruq Yaqubian owned the building. It was really a famous building known for its commercial establishments and companies engaged in different activities.

Why is this impudent right-wing Israeli after the Egyptian movie? The reason is that according to Israel, Yaqubian used to be an Egyptian agent working for the Egyptian intelligence agency in Israel. Though the Egyptian intelligence agency has not commented on the issue until now, a book published in Israel answers all questions by tackling Yaqubian’s life.

To make a long story short, Yaqubian was born in 1938 in Egypt. He is of Armenian origin. He wasn’t a successful student but excelled in learning many languages. After he earned his high school degree he worked in different fields including photography. But his income wasn’t sufficient so he decided to cheat foreigners. In the end, he was arrested and was sentenced to three months in jail in 1959.

Since his first day in prison, he fought with other prisoners trying to control them. The prison warden decided to transfer him to the Egyptian military prison and this caused an enormous change in Yaqubian’s life.

The Egyptian intelligence agency found out that Yaqubian’s foreign features and his multilingual skills — he used to speak English, French, Spanish, Turkish and Arabic fluently — were suitable to send him as a spy to Israel. This decision came after he showed great courage in dealing with prison officers and prisoners. Yaqubian’s mission in Israel was very difficult because the Jews know each other very well.

Yet the Egyptian intelligence agency was able to persuade the Egyptians of Jewish origin to help Yaqubian escape to Israel. And he did arrive in Israel in 1961.

With extreme intelligence, Yaqubian settled in one of the settlements south of Israel and he chose the one with a strategic location, where a number of military officials resided. In 1962, Yaqubian enrolled in the Israeli military and worked as a private driver for one of the Israeli generals called Shaman Bernstein. Bernstein was responsible for implanting Israeli agents in the Arabic countries.

This meant that Yaqubian knew the names of these agents and promptly reported them to the Egyptian intelligence agency that continually was in touch with him. As a result some spies were arrested including Emmanuel Rezone and Shalomit Cohen who were executed in Egypt. Yaqubian also exposed the Judaic origin of the famous Israeli agent who was executed in Iraq along with other unknown agents.

As a result of a love affair, Yaqubian was arrested by Israeli authorities and put on trial in 1964. The court sentenced him to 68 years in prison. In 1966 he was released from prison and handed over to Egypt in return for Israeli agents who were in Egyptian jails.

Yaqubian’s story is not much different from that of the Egyptian agent, Refa’at Al-Jammal whose story was made into a television series. But what’s unique about Yaqubian’s story is that the movie doesn’t mention anything about his personal life; the whole thing centers on the famous building in Cairo.

Alaa Al-Aswany is not the only Egyptian film personality who has done something to the dislike of Israel.

Nour Al-Shareef, the famous Egyptian actor joined his friend Al-Aswany in the movie project. The well-known actor Mohammed Subhi produced and acted in a series called “Fares Bela Jawad”, that exposed many of the Zionist protocols. Then there is the comedian Adel Imam whose movie “Al Safara fe Al Emara” showed how ordinary Egyptian citizens avoids all contacts with Israeli diplomats in Egypt.

The right-wing Israeli is asking for harsh punishment for all those actors. How ridiculous!