Editorial

You all remember the Iraqi Minister of Information, Mr. Mouhamad Said
al-Sahaf and his press conferences when the US forces were already
inside Baghdad. Disinformation at time of war is an accepted tactic.
But to stand, day after day, and to make such preposterous statements,
known to everybody to be lies, without even being ridiculed in your
own milieu, can only happen in this region. Mr. Sahaf eventually
became a popular icon as a court jester, but this did not stop some
allegedly respectable newspapers from giving him equal time. It also
does not prevent the Western press from giving credence, every day,
even now, to similar liars. After all, if you want to be an
antisemite, there are subtle ways of doing it. You do not have to
claim that the holocaust never happened and that the Jewish temple in
Jerusalem never existed.

But millions of Moslems are told by their leaders that this is the
case.

When these same leaders make other statements, the Western media
report them as if they could be true.

It is a daily occurrence that the same people, who finance, arm and
dispatch suicide murderers, condemn the act in English in front of
western TV cameras, talking to a world audience, which even partly
believes them. It is a daily routine to hear the same leader making
opposite statements in Arabic to his people and in English to the rest
of the world. Incitement by Arab TV, accompanied by horror pictures of
mutilated bodies, has become a powerful weapon of those who lie,
distort and want to destroy everything. Little children are raised on
deep hatred and on admiration of so-called martyrs, and the Western
World does not notice it because its own TV sets are mostly tuned to
soap operas and game shows. I recommend to you, even though most of
you do not understand Arabic, to watch Al Jazeera, from time to time.
You will not believe your own eyes.


But words also work in other ways, more subtle. A demonstration in
Berlin, carrying banners supporting Saddam's regime and featuring
three-year old babies dressed as suicide murderers, is defined by the
press and by political leaders as a "peace demonstration". You may
support or oppose the Iraq war, but to refer to fans of Saddam, Arafat
or Bin Laden as peace activists is a bit too much. A woman walks into
an Israeli restaurant in mid-day, eats, observes families with old
people and children eating their lunch in the adjacent tables and pays
the bill. She then blows herself up, killing 20 people, including many
children, with heads and arms rolling around in the restaurant. She is
called "martyr" by several Arab leaders and "activist" by the European
press. Dignitaries condemn the act but visit her bereaved family and
the money flows. There is a new game in town: The actual murderer is
called "the military wing", the one who pays him, equips him and sends
him is now called "the political wing" and the head of the operation
is called the "spiritual leader". There are numerous other examples of
such Orwellian nomenclature, used every day not only by terror chiefs
but also by Western media. These words are much more dangerous than
many people realize. They provide an emotional infrastructure for
atrocities.

It was Joseph Goebels who said that if you repeat a lie often enough,
people will believe it. He is now being outperformed by his
successors.

The third aspect is money. Huge amounts of money, which could have
solved many social problems in this dysfunctional part of the world,
are channeled into three concentric spheres supporting death and
murder. In the inner circle are the terrorists themselves. The money
funds their travel, explosives, hideouts and permanent search for soft
vulnerable targets. They are surrounded by a second wider circle of
direct supporters, planners, commanders, preachers, all of whom make a
living, usually a very comfortable living, by serving as terror
infrastructure.

Finally, we find the third circle of so-called religious, educational
and welfare organizations, which actually do some good, feed the
hungry and provide some schooling, but brainwash a new generation with
hatred, lies and ignorance. This circle operates mostly through
mosques, madrasas and other religious establishments but also through
inciting electronic and printed media. It is this circle that makes
sure that women remain inferior, that democracy is unthinkable and
that exposure to the outside world is minimal. It is also that circle
that leads the way in blaming everybody outside the Moslem world, for
the miseries of the region.

Figuratively speaking, this outer circle is the guardian, which makes
sure that the people look and listen inwards to the inner circle of
terror and incitement, rather than to the world outside. Some parts of
this same outer circle actually operate as a result of fear from, or
blackmail by, the inner circles. The horrifying added factor is the
high birth rate. Half of the population of the Arab world is under the
age of 20, the most receptive age to incitement, guaranteeing two more
generations of blind hatred.