It impacts right across the region. This is perceived as being far more vicious than the idea of economic imperialism, which is more associated with American icons like McDonald's or Coca-Cola. BACK in Egypt, a country that has been at peace with Israel for 21 years, it is not only senior political officials like Moussa who struggle with misperceptions. And it is not only Peres who provides the stuff of stereotypes. Egyptian popular culture still pictures Israelis as the enemy everyone loves to hate.
Demonization pervades the press, publishing, and movie industries.
When Cairo newspapers alleged that a millennium-eve concert at the pyramids was, in fact, a satanic Zionist ritual, the government canceled parts of the show. The newsweekly noted that since 1992, Israeli villains have featured in half a dozen Egyptian television serials and a dozen feature-length films. One of these methods involved the spreading of AIDS by HIV-positive Zionist prostitutes who sold themselves to Egyptian youth seeking pleasure. The Egyptian police caught many of them and their stories were published in the Egyptian press. And the Zionists dispensed chewing gum that arouses sexual lust to university students.