NRO

The Truth About Egypt In plain English.

By Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute November 21, 2001 7:45 a.m. n 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.

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2001