Across the Arab world the language of Holocaust denial has become common. In recent weeks, Arab papers have stepped up their attacks on Israel 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. The official Qatari paper goes on to quote from the notorious anti-Semitic 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.
While the United Nations has declared anti-Semitism 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 anti-Semitism in the Arab media during an American Jewish Committee mission to five Arab countries in March, our interlocutors proclaimed this the price of a free press and assured us that comprehensive peace would moderate the media.