Opinion

Anti-Israeli propaganda perpetuates war in the Middle East

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Shortly after the Palestinian Authority rejected the Camp David Peace Plan 2000, which offered Palestinians about 97 percent of the West Bank, 100 percent of the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem as the new capital and a sovereign Palestinian entity, a violent terror campaign attacking Israel followed.

War between Israel and Arab states is nothing new: Conflict between the respective parties predates the existence of Israel’s independence in 1948. In a change from previous battles in Middle East, this one has become a propaganda war. The rampant spread of anti-Israeli propaganda in the Middle East continues to fuel hatred and violence in the region.

Whenever violence heats up in the Middle East, anti-Israel propaganda emerges from Arab state-controlled news. Some of the recurring themes published by these state-controlled agencies deny Israel’s statehood; others offer anti-Semitic anecdotes, demonize Jews and insist the Holocaust never happened.

Of the 21 recognized Arab countries that surround Israel, not one is definitive of democracy. Democracy is an imperative base to any news that maintains their objective moral integrity. In many Arab states, the state controls all media operations — in effect, portraying multiple viewpoints of the conflict is a rarity; journalists are arrested when any dissenting opinion is voiced; and media outlets are closed down.

So what do Arab state-controlled media publish? What do they portray? And how does their portrayal effect the perception of those who consume it?

Negative portrayals of Israelis and Jews often appear in a cartoon medium to target susceptible children. In these cartoons, Israelis and Jews are often depicted wearing uniforms with swastikas and using Nazi-style tactics that repress Arabs.

No matter what the age, internalized hatred combines with economic despair, perpetuating the cycle of violence from one generation to the next in the Middle East. Though there may not be “a genetic predisposition to hate,” hatred can easily be handed down from parents to children, teacher to student.

Though the Koran looks down upon suicide, many militant Islamists teach slanted misinterpretations of the Koran to convince highly susceptible teenagers that suicide bombers are justified martyrs in the holy war.

Abu Saber M.G. blamed false teachings of the Koran for persuading his son “to blow himself up in one of Israel’s cities.” Since that day, life for Mr. Saber has become more like death: “When the pure body of my son was scattered all over, my last signs of life also dispersed, along with hope and my last will to exist. I am like [an] apparition walking the earth,” Saber writes in a letter to the editor of the London daily Al-Hayat, Sept. 4, 2002.

Another way anti-Israel propaganda fosters deep-rooted hatred is by demonizing Jews. Imagine the affect the following speech, by Sheik Col. Nader al Tamini Mufti of the PLO’s Palestinian Liberation Army, would have on a Palestinian that never met a Jew: “There can be no peace with the Jews because they suck and use the blood of Arabs on holidays of Passover and Purim,” he said in a televised debate on Al Jazeera, Oct. 24, 2000.

Another goal of anti-Israel propaganda is to deny all aspects of Jewish history and suffering. Palestinian Authority’s newspaper Al Hayat- Al-Jadidah reported July 2, 1998, that the Holocaust never happened: “[T]he persecution of the Jews is a deceitful myth which the Jews have labeled the Holocaust and exploited to get sympathy.”

Similar allegation were made in a Palestinian Authority controlled state broadcast Nov. 3, 1998, when Palestinian Arab historian Jahiri al-Kidwa said, “The naked truth is that historians argue that either the Holocaust never happened or that it was on a small scale and the Jews brought it upon themselves,” according to an article titled “The New Anti-Semitic Myth,” released by MEMRI Oct. 15, 2002.

A lesson for us all: Establishing dialogue is the most important step to peace. Whenever dialogue is established between Palestinians and Israelis, there seems to be a beacon of hope that peace will dawn on the horizon of the region. However, the conflict in the Middle East is so deeply ingrained in social, economic, religious and other cultural complexities that racist propaganda only adds another broken piece to the Middle East’s puzzle to find peace.

This puzzle portrayed a more peaceful Israel in 1998, before the second intifada wreaked havoc on the region. These were the days when disputes could be solved, or least contended with, by establishing conversation. Israelis and Palestinians could settle disputes though dialogue and compromise, instead of terrorism and enforced curfews. There was anti-Israeli propaganda then as there is now, but there seemed to be more of an established discourse, providing enough hope that change in the region would not require violence.

In war there is no one right or wrong side; everybody is right or wrong in his or her own mind. However, showing both sides of the story gives representation to the closest version of the truth — an imperative step that both sides need to grasp in the Middle East conflict.

Furthermore, objective news establishes a dialogue for both parties to better understand each other, which in my mind is the first step to lasting peace, understanding and an communicate with each other.

Consumers of racist propaganda often perceive an event through a lens of hate and react irrationally. When personal bias fuels a news operation, as many of the state-controlled Arab news institutions have shown us, objective information falls to a one-sided racist sword, alternative viewpoints are cut, and any chance to establish dialogue is banished in a spiral of hate.

Michael E. Mylrea (memylrea@hotmail.com) is a senior majoring in journalism.