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editorial in a major Arab newspaper recently claimed that American
planes flying over Afghanistan had dropped "genetically treated"
food into areas full of land mines, in order to impair the population's
health — and to maim and kill those hungry enough to risk gathering
the food. These fictitious claims were made in the October 20 edition
of Al-Ahram, a newspaper controlled and run by the Egyptian
government. When the Western press picked up on the story, Al-Ahram's
editor-in-chief responded, on November 1: "These reports are
drawn from the announcements of the Taliban heads themselves, who
know best what is happening in their land." The editor went
on to accuse the United States of waging a "deranged campaign
aimed at punishing the Afghan people" by "expanding the
attacks and directing them at innocent civilians."
While the Egyptian
government remains unwilling to acknowledge that the United States
is viciously maligned in its media on a daily basis, their game
of saying one thing in English and another in Arabic has not gone
unnoticed in Washington. A series of Washington Post editorials
pointed out in October that even while receiving $2 billion a year
in aid from the United States, Egypt has continually allowed and
"even encouraged state-controlled clerics and media to promote
the anti-Western, anti-modern and anti-Jewish propaganda of the
Islamic extremists," and notes the fact that "so many
of Osama bin Laden's recruits are Egyptian."
Hesham el Nakib,
the press counselor for the Egyptian embassy in D.C., responded
with a letter, entitled "Where Egypt Stands," which ignored
the charges made against his government and instead advised the
United States to find another scapegoat. Nevertheless, the relative
ease bin Laden had in recruiting Egyptians for his jihad against
the United States can be directly linked to the Egyptian government's
schools, mosques, and media, and their inculcating of hate in the
minds of their people. Just two weeks before September 11, an article
in the government-controlled paper Al-Akhbar stated: "The
Statue of Liberty, in New York Harbor, must be destroyed because
of following the idiotic American policy that goes from disgrace
to disgrace in the swamp of bias and blind fanaticism… the
age of the American collapse has begun."
These threats
are not going unheard on Capitol Hill. Sen. John McCain, who has
been the most critical of the Egyptian government's behavior, said
in an interview on the October 7 edition of Dateline NBC
that moderate Arab countries such as Egypt "are going to have
to make a choice and regain the airwaves away from extremists that
seem to dominate the dialogue in their own countries." Days
later, on Meet the Press, he added: "They are kind of
trying to have it both ways. I don't think they can and it's very
sad."
When questioned
about Sen. McCain's criticism of Egypt, Secretary of State Colin
Powell told Fox News days later that while they may have people
"who are not happy with what we are doing… I think it's
a little odd for us to say to them, 'You have to muzzle dissent,
you have to muzzle those who are speaking out against us… I
think if we want them to be the kind of nations and lands that we
preach about, we have to expect that if there is another point of
view within that country that differs from the official point of
view of the government, you have to give it the opportunity to be
expressed."' The same Egyptian-government-controlled media
Powell is referring to said of his visit to Egypt, in the March
2 edition of Al-Akhbar: "…the general who holds
the third-highest position in the greatest country on the face of
the earth, revealed that he has the brain of a bird. Colin Powell,
the black American, who we thought would bring rare closeness with
the Arab states, who we expected more of than we did from his predecessors,
shattered our hopes and acted like a stupid teenager."
As these sentiments
are brought to the attention of Americans, there is an increased
awareness of the Egyptian media's hostility towards the United States,
especially after September 11. Less than a week after the attacks,
a writer stated, in the September 16 edition of the government-controlled
Al-Arabi: "In all honesty, and without beating around
the bush: I am happy about the great number of American dead."
This same paper stated on September 22: "For many long years,
America made many peoples in the world cry. It was always [America]
that carried out the acts; now, acts are being carried out [against]
it. A cook who concocts poison must one day also taste that poison!"
A week later,
the independent weekly Al-Maydan stated: "Millions across
the world shouted in joy: 'America was hit!'… This call expressed
the sentiments of millions across the world, whom the American master
had treated with tyranny, arrogance, bullying, conceit, deceit,
and bad taste — like every bully whom no one has yet put in
his place. True, thousands of innocents became victims… among
them Egyptians who had immigrated to the United States in search
of opportunity and [a better] life; but what can a person do when
the neighborhood bully gets [a blow] from behind that shakes his
very existence, insults his dignity, and humiliates him? Obviously
[the person] is glad, even if it is wrong to rejoice..."
That same day,
a writer in the opposition paper Al-Ahrar added: "If
Osama bin Laden is proven to be involved in the attacks on the U.S.,
I will make a statue of him and set it in my home; I will also hang
his picture in my office..." The following day, General Sallah
A-Din Salim (Ret.) wrote in Al-Ahrar: "Although some
were sorry about the killing of innocent Americans in Washington
and New York, most of [our] people derived satisfaction from the
insult to the American pride, and from the shaking of the faith
that the American cowboy, Little Bush, places in the intelligence
apparatuses and their agents throughout the world. There was nearly
an Egyptian consensus on the matter..."
One of the
most striking statements from the Egyptian press came from the opposition
paper Al-Usbu', on September 17. The writer detailed the
pleasure he felt on learning of the terrorist attacks in the United
States: "[Those moments of] exquisite, incandescent hell were
the most beautiful and precious moments of my life. The towers,
the walls, [symbols] of the [American] regime, were a modern, terrifying
monster infiltrated by a brave and stinging hornet…"
The same Egyptian
media who, before September 11, were calling for destroying the
Statue of Liberty, are continuing to espouse hatred against the
United States. As the issue is increasingly debated in Washington,
one would hope that the Egyptian press will come to recognize the
consequences of incendiary words.
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