Peace and Poison in the Middle East
By David A. Harris
 
The Washington Post 
July 2, 2000
 
As Israeli and Palestinian negotiators move toward a much-awaited
Permanent settlement, there has been a shocking rise in vitriolic anti-Semitism across the Arab world. This extraordinary paradox of Israeli and Arab political leaders attempting to build peace while official Arab media, schools, religious leaders and intellectuals actively demonize the Jewish people is startling.
 
When the Islamic mufti of Jerusalem made deeply painful comments
Repudiating the facts of the Holocaust, they received wide attention in the Western world because they came during the remarkable visit to Israel of Pope John Paul II.
 
Likewise, when the official Syrian government newspaper Tishreen
Recently asserted that "Zionists created the Holocaust myth to blackmail and terrorize the world's intellectuals and politicians," the editorial gained broad attention and condemnation because it appeared amid efforts to jump-start the stalled Israeli-Syrian peace talks. Less noted was the fact these two outrages are the rule, not the exception.
 
Across the Arab world the language of Holocaust denial has become
common.Editorials and columns similar to the one in Tishreen can be 
found inAl-Ahram, Al-Akhbar and Al-Gumhuriya, three of the official 
daily newspapersin Egypt. In recent weeks, Arab papers have stepped
up their attacks onIsrael--and on the Jewish people--by labeling in vile words and in gross caricatures Israel's prime minister and foreign 
minister as Nazis, and accusing Israel of the most bizarre machinations.
 
The official newspaper in Qatar, one of two forward-looking gulf nations to open commercial ties with Israel, has warned that Israel dispatches beautiful women to advance trade--and undermine the sheikdom. "Whether these women are from Israel or from Russia, they have one thing in common: the transmitting of disease and evil in order to cause the collapse of our economy," states Al-Sharq. The official Qatari paper goes on to quote from the notorious antisemitic forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, "which is widely available in the Arab world and is often cited by papers in other Arab countries. While the Palestinian Authority is obligated through signed agreements with Israel to work against incitement, its official news organs do not hesitate to join in the vituperation of Israel and Jews.
 
Arab schools are in dutiful step with the editorial writers and
columnists. For example, a new study by the Middle East Media Research Institute reveals that Syrian textbooks for grades 4 to 11 are replete with antisemitism, Holocaust denial, demonization of Israel and, most appalling, an open call to exterminate Jews from the earth. Arab media extol the skewed and widely repudiated views of Holocaust deniers.
 
While the United Nations has declared antisemitism a form of racism that must be condemned, Arab intellectuals are preaching it as gospel. As the noted Johns Hopkins University scholar Fouad Ajami has observed in "The Dream Palace of the Arabs," "the custodians of political power" in the Arab world determined some time ago that "diplomatic accommodation would be the order of the day, but the intellectual class was given a green light to agitate against the peace." This has long been the situation in Egypt, where as recently as March 28 several Israeli diplomats invited to a conference at the University of Cairo were denied entry when they arrived. But it also is true in Jordan, where, despite the Hashemite Kingdom's landmark peace with Israel, professional associations remain adamantly opposed to any interaction with Israelis.
 
When we raised our concerns about antisemitism in the Arab media during
an American Jewish Committee mission to five Arab countries last month, our interlocutors proclaimed this the price of a "free" press and assured us that comprehensive peace would moderate the media. At the same time, when pressed on improving their relations with Israel,
government officials plead for patience because, after all, while the
government is more than willing to deepen ties with the Jewish state, "public opinion" is not yet ready.
 
What a peculiar situation. Is there no acknowledgment of linkage between people's perception of Israel and the daily venom fed them through the Arab media and school curriculum--all sanctioned by the respective Arab governments?
 
Israel is prepared to take calculated risks to achieve peace. But the
antagonistic posture of the Arab media, schools, religious leaders and
intellectuals hardly contributes to the climate and culture that are
desperately needed to turn the region from conflict to cooperation.
 
C Copyright 2000 The Washington Post Company