Culture of Hatred

by Sami Alrabaa

A Palestinian presenter at Al Aqsa Television asks a little girl on a program for kids, “What do you want to become when you grow up?” The girl replied, “I want to become a Mujahida (fighter), I want to liberate Palestine, I want to throw all the Jews out of beloved Palestine. I want to do it as Reem Riyashi (a suicide bomber). But before I die and join the Palestinian martyrs in Paradise, I want to kill as many Israelis as possible.”

This is the kind of culture Hamas TV is spreading around among young Palestinians. It is also brainwashing a potential television audience of three million Palestinians, in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The programs of Hamas TV include shots of rescue workers carrying bodies on blood-soaked stretchers into hospital operating rooms, and painful close-ups of dead children wrapped in bloody sheets. The programs also broadcast strident religious lessons by bearded sheikhs. They urge women to wear the Hijab (headscarf), it is a must, how to deal with polygamy, and men have the right to kill women who commit adultery, they fulfill Allah’s dictum. They also cite Suras (verses) from the Quran and Hadeeth (Prophet Mohammed’s comments) to justify killing civilian and military Israelis. The “sermons” are footaged by images of shots by masked men with guns and Qassam rockets. “They are occupying our land. Hence, every Israeli is a legitimate target. The Zionists must go back to where they have come from.” Sheikh Ibraheem Mudiris keeps saying.

Hamas TV is bankrolled by Hamas’s leader in exile, Khaled Meshaal and financed by suitcases of cash, filled with money from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Syria, and smuggled into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt.

Secular and moderate Palestinians are appalled by the extremist propaganda of Hamas TV. Iyad Barghouthi, the director of Ramallah Human Rights Center, says Al Aqsa TV is a disturbing milestone in the rise of Islamist forces since Hamas came to power. Hamas’s practices are reminiscent of those of the Talibans. Al Barghouthi told Spiegel on-line, “Al Aqsa TV is not only encouraging violence, it is also spreading fanatic Islamism and racism.”

To add insult to injury, Mohammed Shtaiwi, the director of Al Aqsa’s West Bank office in Ramallah, told BBC “We want to send a message of people under occupation to the world. And we want to do it in a professional manner.”

“If Al Aqsa is targeting international audience, this will be a very bad message – showing masked people, firing Qassams, firing guns.” Said Nashat Aqrash, a media studies professor at Beer Zeit University.

The anti-Israel media landscape throughout the Arab world is not better off. In particular, the Syrian, the Saudi, and the Egyptian media are hawkish and propagandistic. Fair and objective analyses and information are non existent. The message is clear: Israel is to blame for the misery of Palestinians.

The Syrian Minister of Tourism, Saadalla Agha al-Qalaa, told the newspaper Tishreen, “The Zionists are spreading bad propaganda about Syria to prevent tourists from visiting our country.” So, that is the reason why few tourists, especially Westerners, come to Syria to spend their holidays, not the bad services which the country is offering tourists. When I was in Damascus last year, I could watch how tourists had to change queues several times before their passports were processed at the airport police control. You have to wait for at least one hour to get your passport processed. Besides, there are only two categories of hotels, either first class or no class at all. The beaches are occupied by influential supporters of the Baath regime.

Why is all that. The Baath regime is not interested in tourism. Tourists could infect the local population with ideas about democracy and human rights. Tourists would also tell the Syrians another story about the “decadent” and “unfair” West. No, no, it is Israel to blame for the small number of tourists who visit Syria. This is typical of Arab regimes: just blame it on the Israelis and Zionists and you are free of responsibility. If Israel did not exist, the whole Arab world would be a prosperous region!

As I visited the southern border of Syria with Israel two years ago, I told my companion, a member of the Baath party, “Look how green the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.” He interrupted, “It is all propaganda. With the help of the Americans, the Israelis have made it green, just to show off.” I counter-argued, “Why don’t you allow the locals who were displaced during the 1973 war to return to their homes and make this part of Syrian also green.” He said, “It’s dangerous. The Israelis could attack us any time.”

He defeated me with his brilliant argument. I was speechless. Not only the media blame Israel for all the problems the Arab world has. The school text books in all Arab countries depict an aggressive and absolutistic image of Israel. The gist of this image goes like this: Israel is an alien limb in the heart of the Arab nation. It is occupying Palestine. Palestine must be liberated from the Zionists as Salah Deen liberated Jerusalem from the Crusaders.

The culture of hatred must stop. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech like narcotics have nothing to do with free market practices.

Western governments have got to pressure Arab countries to introduce genuine freedom of speech, i.e. free media. Arab journalists and writers who deliver balanced articles on the Arab-Israeli conflict are banned from publishing. Arab regimes are suspicious of these people and more often than not, they are arbitrarily put behind bars and accused of spying for the arch enemy, Israel.

I am one of those who have tried to publish articles in the Arab press about the Arab-Israeli conflict telling readers that the Israel-image as presented in the belligerent Arab discourse is distorted and fabricated. I have also stressed that if the Arab countries were as democratic as Israel, the conflict would disappear and Israelis and Arabs would live in peace, side by side. If Arabs were objectively informed, they would choose to co-exist with their Israeli neighbors. Ethnic and religious minorities are integrated in the Israeli society and enjoy the same political rights the Jews do. Muslim and Christian Arabs, for example, sit in the Israeli parliament (Kneset) and say whatever they want. A Muslim Arab sits also in the Israeli cabinet. My articles have never been published, and they will never. Arabs are not allowed to know the truth.

Western governments have to re-educate, at least, their Arab allies, as the Allies did with the Germans after the World War II. The war on terror does not make any sense unless the root causes of extremism are uprooted, in the media and at school.