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June 15, 2001/Sivan 24, 5761, Vol. 53, No.37
Media spawns anti-Semitic propaganda
MICHELE CHABIN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
CHICAGO - While in Cairo attempting to negotiate a cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians in late April, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres spotted a newspaper caricature depicting him as a Nazi.
The item, which appeared in the Sunday edition of Egypt's opposition newspaper, Al Arabi, showed a photograph of Peres' face super-imposed over a man in a Nazi uniform. The caption read: "Peres, the Butcher of [Kfar] Qana and messenger of the great criminal Sharon, is in Cairo today."
According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitic/anti-Israel sentiments can be found throughout the Arab world, from Syria to Iraq, from Egyptian to the Palestinian Authority. Numerous cartoons, editorials, and TV and radio addresses compare Israel to the Nazis and either underestimate Jewish suffering during the Holocaust or dismiss it entirely. All forms of media are rife with anti-Semitic imagery.
On rare occasions the propaganda coming out of Arab lands is so ludicrous, it elicits amused disbelief in progressive Arab journalists. Such was the case when Islamic fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere recently issued a fatwa, or religious ban, on anything having to do with Pokemon. The muftis claimed the character encourages gambling and promotes Zionism by displaying a six-pointed star in some of its programs.
More often than not, however, even Western-educated journalists in such "progressive" Arab nations as Jordan, Morocco and Egypt spawn a web of anti-Semitic/anti-Zionist hatred. In one cartoon, which appeared in the Egyptian newspaper Al A-Ahali in October 2000, a hooked-nosed, fanged soldier sporting a swastika and a Jewish star is brandishing a rifle and a knife over a miniature of the Al-Aksa mosque. A helpless, kind-faced Arab, his arms tied behind his back, looks on.
In April of this year, the Egyptian paper Al Akhbar published a column entitled "Thanks to Hitler" in which the author, Ahmad Ragab, thanked Hitler for the persecution of 6 million Jews and also claimed Hitler's "revenge on them was not enough."
In the eyes of some observers, the Palestinian media hit rock bottom just a few days after a Palestinian gunman shot and killed 10-month-old Shalhevet Pass in Hebron on March 26. Afterward, Palestine Radio broadcast a report saying that the infant had been murdered by her mother.
In response, Gideon Meir, deputy director-general of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs division of public affairs, said, "the things that were broadcast on Voice of Palestine are testimony to just how low the Palestinians are willing to go in order to win world public opinion."
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