Your Voice in a World where Zionism, Steel, and Fire, have Turned Justice Mute

 

 

How the Jewish-Zionist Grip on American Film and Television

Promotes Bias Against Arabs and Muslim

 

 
Dear Readers of the Free Arab Voice, the following article by
Dr. Abdullah Mohammad Sindi examines:
1. Jewish/Zionist influence in Hollywood and the US media.
2. Racism towards Arabs in America and American films.
3. The relationship between TV depiction of Arabs and violence
   against them.
4. Explanations for this from TV and Hollywood personalities 
   through Jack Shaheen's famous book on the subject.

This article contains a wealth of material on this very important issue,
and as such, we recommend it to our readers. However, we have some serious
reservations on the author's approach.For more on this, please read:
- Wanting to be 'White': A Critique of the Critics
of Arab Depictions in Hollywood and the American Mass Media
- A Detailed Commentary on Sindi's Article: by Nabila Harb, FAV Co-Editor

***

This article appeared in The Journal of Historical Review (Vol. 17, No. 5,
September/October 1998, pp. 2-9.) and is reprinted here by permission from 
its author as well as from The Journal of Historical Review (PO Box 2739,
Newport Beach, California, 92659, USA).

***

How the Jewish-Zionist Grip on American Film and Television
Promotes Bias Against Arabs and Muslims
By: Abdullah Mohammad Sindi *

Unquestionably the most powerful molder of opinion in the world
today is the American global media, and especially the Hollywood 
motion picture industry. Ever since Zionist Jews forcibly established 
the State of Israel on the land of Arab Palestine in 1948 (with a 
great deal of American help), and as Arabs and Israelis have 
struggled for control of this land in the years since, Hollywood 
and the rest of American mass media have carried out a campaign 
to disparage Arabs and tarnish their image.
American motion pictures and television -- which have promoted 
negative images of non-Caucasians, including Native Americans, 
African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Asian-Americans -- since 
the 1950s have singled out Arabs and Muslims, more often than 
any other ethnic-religious group, as objects of hatred, contempt, 
and derision. (Because Arabs are the world's most numerous Semitic 
group, this hostility against them is literally anti-Semitic.)
'Villain of Choice'

In American television, writes Professor Shaheen, "the villain 
of choice today is the Arab." He also says: "To be an Arab in 
America today is to be an object of contempt and ridicule by 
television under the guise of entertainment. To me this anti-Arab 
image on entertainment manifests itself in the politics of America." (1)
Misconceptions

This media campaign fosters numerous misconceptions about Arabs 
and their prevailing religion, Islam. For example, although Arabs 
have lived for centuries in thriving metropolitan centers such 
as Rabat, Algiers, Alexandria, Cairo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Beirut, 
Mecca (Makkah) and Baghdad, and have built complex, civilized 
societies across the Arab world, as well as in Europe's Iberian 
Peninsula, many Westerners have been persuaded to believe that 
Arabs are typically uncultured nomads who live in desert tents.
Similarly, while many Americans regard OPEC -- the Organization 
of Petroleum Exporting Countries -- as synonymous with Arabs and 
the Arab world, and while the US media routinely blames Arabs 
whenever OPEC decides to raise oil prices, in fact six of the 
13 OPEC member states are not Arab.
Also typically, American television and motion pictures often 
depict Arabs and Muslims, uniquely, as religious bigots, lacking 
any tolerance for the religious sensibilities of others. In fact, 
for much of history, Islam has been more tolerant of Christianity 
(and of Judaism) than vice versa. Moreover, it was Jewish Zionists 
who established Israel, in the "promised land" of Palestine, as 
a state exclusively for the "chosen people."
While the Arabic word "Allah" is often invoked in American films 
in a way designed to evoke derision and cynicism, conjuring an 
image of some weird pagan deity, in fact "Allah" is simply the 
Arabic word for God. Not only Arab Muslims, but Arab Christians 
and even Arab Jews, use this word as their term for God.
Although officially classified by US government agencies as 
"White" or "Caucasian," Arabs (and particularly Arab men) 
are sometimes depicted in American television and movies 
as Negroid blacks, reinforcing a derogatory image of Arabs 
as so-called "sand niggers."
"Terrorists" are active all over the world, in countries 
as diverse as Britain, Italy, Ireland, Russia, Germany, 
Spain, Japan, Israel, and the United States. (The terrorist 
record of the Jewish Defense League, for example, is well 
documented. In 1985 the FBI named the JDL as the second most 
active terrorist groups in the US.) (2) However, Hollywood 
has done much to encourage Americans to associate "terrorists" 
with Arabs (especially Palestinians), and Muslim "militants."
Arab Takeover?

Highly-publicized Arab purchases of some US corporations in 
the 1970s and 1980s set off hysterical cries in this country's 
periodical press and electronic media about the danger of Arabs 
allegedly "buying up" America. In reality, these purchases were 
unexceptional, no different than numerous other cross-border 
investments carried out routinely around the world over the 
last century. Actually, during the 1980s Canada, Britain, 
Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Japan accounted 
for nearly 90 percent of direct foreign investment in the US. 
Direct foreign investment from OPEC member countries, the US 
Department of Commerce reported, accounted for less than one 
percent of the total. (3)
Jewish Power in Hollywood

Negative images of Arabs in American motion pictures are 
hardly surprising given the major role played by Jews and 
other supporters of Zionism in Hollywood. In his 1988 study, 
An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, 
Jewish author Neal Gabler shows that Jews established all of 
the major American film studios, including Columbia, 
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal, 
and Twentieth-Century Fox. The American film industry, writes 
Gabler, (4) was founded ... and operated by Eastern European 
Jews ... And when sound movies commandeered the industry, 
Hollywood was invaded by a battalion of Jewish writers, mostly 
from the East. The most powerful talent agencies were run by 
Jews. Jewish lawyers transacted most of the industry's business 
and Jewish doctors ministered to the industry's sick. Above all, 
Jews produced the movies ... All of which led F. Scott Fitzgerald 
to characterize Hollywood carpingly as "a Jewish holiday, a 
gentiles [sic] tragedy."
So rapidly did Jews come to dominate Hollywood that as early 
as 1921 Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent was moved to fulminate 
that American motion pictures are (5) 
  Jew-controlled, not in spots only, not 50 percent merely, 
  but entirely; with the natural consequence that now the 
  world is in arms against the trivializing and demoralizing 
  influences of that form of entertainment as presently managed ... 
  As soon as the Jews gained control of the "movies," we had a 
  movie problem, the consequences of which are not yet visible.
In his detailed 1994 study, Sacred Chain: A History of the 
Jews, New York University professor Norman F. Cantor, pointed 
out that Hollywood film production and distribution was 
"almost completely dominated in the first 50 years of its 
existence by immigrant Jews and is still dominated at its 
top level by Jews ... The last Gentile bastion in Hollywood, 
the Disney studio, came under Jewish executive leadership 
in the early 1990s." (6)
Jewish historian and journalist Jonathan J. Goldberg, makes 
a similar point in his 1996 survey, Jewish Power: Inside 
the American Jewish Establishment. He writes: (7)
  ... Jews are represented in the media business in numbers 
  far out of proportion to their share of the population ... 
  In a few key sectors of the media, notably among Hollywood 
  studio executives, Jews are so numerically dominant that 
  calling these businesses Jewish-controlled is little more 
  than a statistical observation.
  Hollywood at the end of the twentieth century is still an 
  industry with a pronounced ethnic tinge. Virtually all the 
  senior executives at the major studios are Jews. Writers, 
  producers, and to a lesser degree directors, are 
  disproportionately Jews -- one recent study showed 
  the figure as high as 59 percent among top-grossing films.
  The combined weight of so many Jews in one of America's 
  most lucrative and important industries gives the Jews 
  of Hollywood a great deal of political power. They are 
  a major source of money for Democratic candidates. The 
  industry's informal patriarch, MCA chairman Lew Wasserman, 
  wields tremendous personal clout in state and national politics ...
Hollywood's Jewish executives greeted the founding of Israel in 1948 
with ecstasy. One Jewish film executive, Robert Blumofe, later 
recalled the euphoric mood of the time: "And suddenly Israel, 
even to the least Jewish of us, represented status of some sort. 
It meant that we did have a homeland. It meant that we did have 
an identity ... All of this was terribly, terribly uplifting." (8)
In the decades since, Hollywood has presented an image of Arabs 
that is often cruel and barbaric. Manifesting its support for 
Israel, and its opposition to the Arab and Muslim worlds, which 
have strongly opposed the invasive Zionist state, Hollywood 
developed a cinema genre around the Arab-Israeli conflict. 
In this spirit, Hollywood has produced numerous "good guy/bad 
guy" films over the last 50 years, simplistically portraying 
heroic and righteous Israeli Jews prevailing against treacherous 
and barbaric Arabs. During the 1960s alone, at least ten such 
major Hollywood films were produced. (9)
In such films, Israeli Jews and their American friends are 
frequently played by popular and good-looking Jewish-American 
actors such as Paul Newman, Tony Curtis, and Kirk Douglas, 
as well as handsome non-Jewish actors such as Yul Brynner, 
John Wayne, Jane Fonda, Frank Sinatra, Charlton Heston, 
George Peppard, Rock Hudson, Sal Mineo, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. 
Arabs, predictably, are routinely portrayed as and cruel, 
cynical, and ugly.
During a publicity interview for her 1981 film "Rollover" 
(in which "the Arabs" destroy the world financial system), 
actress Jane Fonda, "the progressive leftist" of the 1960s, 
bluntly expressed her own bigoted view of Arabs: "If we are 
not afraid of the Arabs, we'd better examine our heads. 
They have strategic power over us. They are unstable, they 
are fundamentalists, tyrants, anti-women, anti-free press." (10)
It is not possible to recount here all of Hollywood's many 
anti-Arab or anti-Muslim pictures over the last several 
decades, but here are some representative productions:
In "Exodus" (1960), brutal Arabs kill an attractive 
15-year-old Jewish girl played by Jill Hayworth; in 
"Cast a Giant Shadow" (1966), Arabs leer and laugh as 
they shoot an Israeli woman trapped in a truck; in "Network" 
(1976, and winner of four Academy Awards), a crusading 
television news commentator warns that Arabs, "the medieval 
fanatics," are taking control of the US; in "Black Sunday" 
(1977) an Israeli plays the hero, while Arabs are the 
villains and terrorists who want to kill Superbowl 
spectators, including the President of the United States; 
in "The Delta Force" (1986), "Iron Eagle" (1986), and "Death 
Before Dishonor" (1987), Hollywood shows viewers how to deal 
decisively with the low-life, no-good, dirty Arab terrorists; 
in the Disney studio's animated film production, "Aladdin" (1992), 
the theme song brazenly refers to Arabia as barbaric ("It's 
barbaric, but hey, it's home"); in "True Lies" (1994), an Arab 
terrorist with nuclear weapons has to be stopped; in "Executive 
Decision" (1996) yet another group of Arab militants hijacks 
an American plane; and in "Kazaam" (1996), an Arab criminal 
and a black genie enjoy eating a "centuries-old Arab delicacy," 
a plate of goats' eyes.
More recent motion pictures with negative images of Arabs or 
Muslims include "Not Without My Daughter" and "The Siege." 
In "The Siege," Muslims wage a bombing campaign against 
innocent Americans. In response, federal authorities declare 
martial law and carry out mass arrests of Muslims and Arabs 
across the United States. (11)
Television

It is difficult to exaggerate the role played by television 
in shaping the mindset and outlook of the American people. 
Dr. George Gerbner, former Dean of the Annenberg School of 
Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, put it 
this way: "Television, more than any single institution, 
molds American behavioral norms and values. And the more TV 
we watch, the more we tend to believe in the world according 
to TV, even though much of what we see is misleading." (12)
Like the US motion picture industry, American television is 
dominated by Jews and supporters of Zionism. While American 
Jews constitute only about two or three percent of the US 
population, (13)  Irving Pearlberg, a Jewish-American television 
writer, maintains that no less than 40 percent of American 
television writers are Jewish. (14) During the early 1990s, 
notes New York University professor Norman Cantor, "one TV 
network was already headed by a Jew (Laurence Tisch at CBS), 
and Jews are prominent executives and producers at the other 
two major networks as well." (15)
Ben Stein, Jewish-American author of The View From Sunset 
Boulevard, forthrightly acknowledged: (16)
  A distinct majority, especially of the writers of situation 
  comedies, is Jewish ... TV people have certain likes ... and 
  dislikes ... and these likes and dislikes are translated 
  into television programming. In turn, this problem raises 
  the public acceptance of the favored groups and the public 
  dislikes of the resented groups.
Given this reality, it is hardly surprising that one rarely, 
if ever, sees a Jewish or Israeli figure portrayed as a villain 
on American television. On the contrary, Israelis in particular 
and the Jews in general are routinely portrayed in the American 
mass media as heroic, insightful, sophisticated, witty, intelligent, 
compassionate, physically attractive, confident, humane, and successful.
On the other hand, like the Arab in Hollywood movies, the US 
television Arab is often physically unappealing, wealthy, 
stupid, sexist, crude, lazy, uncultured, cruel, rude, greedy, 
fanatical, anti-American, and anti-Christian. He is often 
portrayed as a terrorist, a plane hijacker, a polygamist, 
a sex-maniac, a hostage-taker, a murderer, a kidnapper of 
young blond-haired, blue-eyed women, an as an oil sheikh 
blackmailer, and oddly dressed (often in a red-checkered 
kuffiyyah headdress, or in ungainly gowns or robes).
News reporting on American television, as well as its 
presentations of history and other serious subjects, routinely 
has a distinctly pro-Israeli or pro-Jewish slant. This is 
understandable, of course, given the prominent role of 
Jews in television news departments, and the many Jews 
(often with obvious Zionist biases) employed as reporters, 
frequently covering the Arab-Israeli conflict or the Middle 
East generally.
Seldom does America's Zionist-oriented media fairly present 
the Arab or Muslim point of view, particularly on such issues 
as the plight of displaced Palestinians, oil politics, or the 
struggle against Western imperialism. For example, the Zionists 
who invaded Arab Palestine during the 1930s and 40s, are 
frequently (and misleadingly) referred to as "homeless" 
Jews. Similarly, Israeli military actions against Arabs 
over the last 50 years are routinely justified as acts 
of "retaliation" against Palestinian and Arab aggression 
or terrorism.
Whereas the Zionist-Jewish point of view is frequently 
presented on American television without challenge, the 
Arab or Muslim point of view (when is even adequately 
given) is often presented only together with a "balancing" 
Zionist-Jewish perspective.
In addition to producing films and programming that are 
supportive of Israel, and distorting the views and positions 
of Arabs and Muslims (especially with regard to the struggle 
against the Zionist occupation of Palestine), Hollywood and 
the American television networks effectively censor pro-Arab 
and pro-Muslim motion pictures and television programming. 
During the 1970s, for example, American motion picture 
theaters and television networks boycotted and "killed" 
a pro-Palestinian film produced by Vanessa Redgrave, 
the well-known British actress and leftist activist.
James McCartney, a veteran American journalist, once 
said what many Arabs and Muslims have thought for decades: (17)
  It is my personal belief that if the media as a whole 
  in the western world had done an adequate job in 
  reporting from the Middle East, it would not have 
  been necessary for the Palestinians to resort to 
  violence to draw attention to their case.
Christian Apologists

Many non-Jews also help promote a distorted pro-Zionist 
and anti-Arab portrayal of the past and present on American 
television. This is especially true of the Christian 
fundamentalist "televangelists" -- such as Pat Robertson, 
Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell, and Oral Roberts 
-- who have dominated America's "religious" broadcasting. 
These passionate defenders of Israel and Zionism show no 
sympathy for the plight of fellow Christians under Zionist 
rule, but even castigate Christian and Muslim Palestinians 
for resisting Zionist oppression and the Jewish subjugation 
of their historic homeland. This is not only tragic, but 
ironic in light of the fact that Israel treats the Christians 
(and Muslims) under its rule essentially as second-class citizens.
Such apologists for Israel often engage in gross distortions of 
history. For example, some Christian televangelists cite alleged 
massacres of Hebrews in ancient times (portrayed as the 
equivalent of modern Israelis) at the hands of the Assyrians 
(who are portrayed as the equivalent of modern-day Arab Syrians), 
and at the hands of the Babylonians (portrayed as the equivalent 
of modern-day Arab Iraqis). Ignored, however, is any mention 
of the numerous ancient Hebrew massacres of Philistines (the 
ancestors of today's Palestinians), as reported in the Hebrew 
Bible (Old Testament). In the Sixth Chapter of the book of 
Joshua, for example, we read as follows: "And they [Hebrews] 
utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and 
woman, young and old, and ox and sheep and ass, with the 
edge of the sword." (18)
Pervasive Negative Images

In his detailed study, The TV Arab, Arab-American scholar 
Jack G. Shaheen -- professor emeritus of broadcast journalism 
at Southern Illinois University -- documents pervasive negative 
imagery of Arabs by all American television networks, and by 
practically all leading newscasters and personalities working 
for them. For this book, Dr. Shaheen examined more than 100 
popular television programs, totaling nearly 200 episodes, 
and interviewed numerous television executives, producers, 
and writers. American television, concludes Dr. Shaheen 
-- including popular entertainment, comedy, drama, documentaries, 
news, and even sports and religious and children's broadcasting 
-- across the board has, at one time or another, presented 
distorted and demeaning images of Arabs.
In addition to Hollywood movies and scripted television 
programming, viewers can also find "humorous" Arab bashing 
on live, unscripted television broadcasting, even by prominent 
TV personalities. To get a laugh from a television talk show 
audience, Merv Griffin (who is not Jewish) once brazenly 
equated Arabs with animals: "If you lie down with Arabs, 
[you] get up with fleas." Once, referring to traditional 
Arab dress and fashion, Jewish television comedienne Joan 
Rivers laughingly told her viewers: "I can never tell if 
it's the wife or the husband because they're all in bedsheets." 
And Jewish comedian Alan King once disparagingly frowned when 
describing the traditional clothing of Sultan Qaboos of Oman, 
saying: "What the hell is he dressed up for? Oman's got eleven 
people and a goat." (19)
Even programming aimed at children has not been free of 
demeaning portrayals of Arabs. Among the popular animated 
cartoon characters who have fomented derogatory or hateful 
images of Arabs, Dr. Shaheen shows, have been Bugs Bunny, 
Yosemite Sam, Goofy, Woody Woodpecker, Popeye, Scooby-Doo, 
Heckle and Jeckle, Porky Pig, Plastic Man, Richy Rich, Pinky 
and the Brain, Animaniacs, and Duck Tales.
Pressing for Explanations

In interviews with American television executives, Dr. Shaheen 
pressed for an explanation for the hypocrisy and lack of decency 
and self-restraint in this pattern of Arab stereotyping on TV. 
Many of those questioned, he reports, were "embarrassed," and 
reluctantly acknowledged the widespread disparagement of Arabs, 
without, however, explaining the reasons for such prejudiced 
imagery.
Donn O'Brien, CBS vice president of broadcast standards, 
sheepishly admitted to Shaheen that he had never seen a "good 
Arab" on American television, and that Arabs are routinely 
presented as covetous desert rulers or as warmongers. "Arabs 
are rarely portrayed as good guys," acknowledged Frank Glicksman, 
a Jewish-American TV producer in Los Angeles. "I've never seen 
them portrayed as anything but heavies in melodrama. That, I feel, 
is unfair." Another Hollywood television producer, Don Brinkley, 
conceded: "The depiction of the Arab on television is generally 
horrendous." And George Watson, vice president of ABC News, 
admitted: "Arabs have not been seen to be as real, as close, 
or as tangible, either as individuals or as a group, as the 
Israelis ..." (20)
Not all television executives were as forthcoming, however. 
Jewish television producer Meta Rosenberg, for example, bluntly 
responded to Shaheen's inquiry by saying that she did not care 
about the Arabs, and considered the Arab-American community -- 
which now numbers well over three million -- to be "insignificant." 
Shaheen also contacted Norman Lear, one of America's most successful 
and influential television producers. Among his popular and innovative 
hit shows have been "All in the Family," and "The Jeffersons." In none 
of his numerous productions, Shaheen notes, has this Jewish executive 
ever presented a humane Arab. Lear simply refused to meet with Shaheen, 
answer any of his multiple letters, or even talk to him by phone. (21)
More than a few of those who work in the media, including some Jews, 
have expressed concern over the pattern of Arab bashing in American 
motion pictures and television. Journalist John Cooley, for example, 
acknowledged that "no other ethnic group in America would willingly 
submit to what Arabs and Muslims in general have faced in the United 
States media." (22) Columnist Nicholas Von Hoffman, writing in the 
Washington Post, told readers that "no national, religious or cultural 
group... has been so massively and consistently vilified" as the Arabs. 
Jewish writer Meg Greenfield, a veteran Washington Post columnist, 
expressed the view that "there is a dehumanizing, circular process 
at work here. The caricature dehumanizes ... [But the caricature] 
is inspired and made acceptable by an earlier dehumanizing influence, 
namely an absence of feeling for who the Arabs are and where they 
have been." And Steve Bell of ABC News said simply: "The Arab is no 
doubt a current victim of stereotyping not only on television, but 
throughout the mass media in the United States." (23)
High Price of Speaking Out

Although criticism of specific Israeli policies is permissible in 
the United States, it is more or less forbidden to express fundamental 
criticism of the Zionist state, of America's basic policy of support 
for Israel, or of the Jewish-Zionist grip on the US media or America's 
political and academic life. (Remarkably, this is in contrast to the 
situation in Israel itself, where Jews and even Arab citizens of the 
Zionist state have much greater freedom than Americans publicly to 
criticize Zionism and Israeli policies.)
Prominent persons who dare to violate this prohibition are immediately 
castigated as "anti-Semitic" (that is, anti-Jewish), and pay a heavy 
price in damage to their reputations or careers. Politicians who 
publicly speak out against America's support for Zionism risk 
almost certain political ruin. Among the political or governmental 
figures whose careers were destroyed because they violated the 
powerful taboo have been US Senators William Fulbright, Adlai 
Stevenson III, and Charles Percy, Congressmen Paul McCloskey 
and Paul Findley, and Deputy Secretary of State George Ball. (24)
Those who merely "slip up" are obliged to recant. Thus, Marlon 
Brando was promptly and severely chastised after criticizing 
Jewish Hollywood producers and executives for promoting vicious 
racist stereotyping of minorities. Even though what the well-known 
actor had said during an April 1996 broadcast interview with Larry 
King was demonstrably true, a short time later Brando was forced to 
issue a craven apology.
Sometimes the price for speaking out is more severe than the defaming 
of one's reputation or the ruin of one's career. On October 11, 1985, 
Alex Odeh, the West Coast regional director of the American-Arab 
Anti-Discrimination Committee, was killed in a bomb blast when he 
entered his group's office in Santa Ana, southern California. The 
previous evening the Palestinian-born Odeh had appeared on a local 
news show to present an Arab perspective on the Arab-Israeli 
conflict. The FBI announced that the Jewish Defense League 
(JDL) was responsible for the murder of Odeh, and at least 
two other terrorist incidents. The three JDL associates who 
were suspected of carrying out the killing fled to Israel to 
avoid punishment. No one has ever been tried for the murder 
of Alex Odeh. (25)
Hate Crimes

Unlike other minority groups in the United States, Arab-Americans 
have had to endure hostility not only from ignorant and prejudiced 
individuals, but in addition from powerful Jewish-Zionist elements 
in the mass media.
For one thing, television and print journalists often identify 
Arab-Americans or Muslim-Americans who are suspected of crimes 
by their ethnic or religious origin, a practice that incites already 
latent public prejudice and hatred. Thus one can find newspaper 
reports with headlines such as "Arabs Battle Police" or "Muslims 
are Arrested." Non-Arab criminal suspects are rarely, if ever, 
similarly identified by ethnic or religious origin.
Whenever acts of terrorism take place against the US or Israel, 
or the US or Israel is involved in military conflicts with Arab 
countries or groups, ordinary Arab-Americans become victims of hate.
As a result of the US-led military action against Iraq in late 
1990 and January 1991, for example, hate crimes against 
Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans, including arson, bombings, 
and assaults, tripled. (26) Incidents of harassment and physical 
attacks against Arab-Americans similarly increased across the 
country in the wake of the February 1993 bombing of the World 
Trade Center in New York City, and of the April 1995 Oklahoma 
City federal building bombing. Arab-Americans were targeted as 
if they were personally responsible for these terrorist attacks.
Immediately following the Oklahoma City bombing, some reporters, 
such as CNN's Wolf Blitzer, accused Arabs of this act of terrorism. 
Similarly, CBS newswoman Connie Chung declared: "US government 
sources told CBS News that [the bombing] has Middle East terrorism 
written all over it." (27) Even after Timothy McVeigh was arrested 
and indicted for the Oklahoma City bombing, New York Times columnist 
A. M. Rosenthal baldly asserted that "most other attacks against 
Americans came from the Middle East." (28)
As a result of such hasty and false accusations, in the wake of 
the Oklahoma City bombing there were 227 reported incidents of 
hostility, both violent and non-violet, against Arabs and Muslims 
across the US. (29) Men and women of Arab origin were insulted, 
threatened, cursed, picketed, spat on, and, in a few cases, 
physically attacked. Vandals broke into homes of Arab-Americans 
and destroyed property. Other hoodlums vandalized Arab-American 
businesses and other properties, spray-painting hateful slogans 
such as "Why don't you terrorists go back to your own country," 
"Get out of America," "You're not Americans," "You dirty Arabs," 
"You don't belong here," "Go back home," and "You will pay for 
this." (30)
In 1997, reports the Council on American-Islamic Relations 
(Washington, DC), there were 280 incidents of anti-Muslim 
violence, discrimination, stereotyping, bias and harassment 
last year in the United States. This is an increase of 18 
percent in such incidents over the previous year. (31) The 
full scope of the and anxiety, fear and humiliation endured 
by individual Arab-Americans is obviously impossible to measure, 
but unquestionably many individual Arab-Americans have suffered 
in their personal, social, and professional lives, particularly 
if they are immigrants or first-generation citizens who (like 
this writer) speak English with an accent. (32)
Some Arab-Americans have chosen to endure such bigotry and 
prejudice in silence. Others have responded by returning to 
their countries of origin, or by denying or concealing their 
heritage. Quite a few have "Americanized" or "Westernized" 
their first and last names, in an effort to "pass" as southern- 
or eastern-Europeans. Early in his career acclaimed motion 
picture actor F. Murray Abraham (who received an "Oscar" 
for his role in "Amadeus"), sought to escape prejudice by 
hiding his Arab identity.
Ominous Implications

Summing up the deplorable situation, Professor Shaheen has stated: (33)
  Because Arabs and Arab civilization are held in contempt by 
  many in Hollywood, many Americans and their political 
  representatives have few if any positive feelings about 
  Arabs. Their impressions are based in part on the clouded 
  image of the TV screen ... Stereotyping tends to be 
  self-perpetuating, providing not only information but ... 
  "pictures in our heads." These pictures of Arabs reinforce 
  and sharpen viewer prejudices. Television shows are 
  entertainment, but they are also symbols ... A villain 
  is needed in [television and motion picture] conflicts 
  that pit good against evil. Today's villain is the Arab... 
  depicted as the murderous white-slaver, the dope dealer, 
  the fanatic ... To make matters worse ... America's TV 
  image of the Arab is marketed throughout the world ...
Non-Jewish Americans are also victims of the Jewish-Zionist 
grip on America's motion picture and television industries, 
propagandistically manipulated by alien interests that foment 
artificial distrust and enmity between peoples who, 
objectively, have no conflicting interests.
The hostility and prejudice against Arabs and Muslims 
engendered by Hollywood and US television infects not 
only tens of millions of Americans, but also hundreds 
of millions of credulous viewers worldwide. Such noxious 
propaganda over a period of decades inevitably has grave 
long-term consequences. This flood of ethnic-religious 
poison understandably produces deep resentment among 
hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims around the 
globe -- creating a vast and growing reservoir of 
resentment and rage that one day will almost certainly 
erupt with terrible fury.
Notes

1.  Jack G. Shaheen, The TV Arab (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling 
    Green State Univ. Popular Press, 1984), p. 11; Quoted in: 
    Richard H. Curtiss, A Changing Image: American Perceptions 
    of the Arab-Israeli Dispute (Washington, DC: American 
    Educational Trust, 1982), p. 153.
2.  Mark Weber, The Zionist Terror Network: Background and 
    Operation of the Jewish Defense League and Other Criminal 
    Zionist Groups (Institute for Historical Review, 1993), p. 6.
3.	J. G. Shaheen, The TV Arab (1984), p. 13.
4.  Neal Gabler, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented
    Hollywood (New York: Doubleday [and Crown], 1988), pp. 1-2.
5.	Quoted in: N. Gabler, An Empire of Their Own (1988), p. 277.
6.  Norman F. Cantor, Sacred Chain: A History of the Jews 
    (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), pp. 390, 401.
7.  Jonathan J. Goldberg, Jewish Power: Inside the American 
    Jewish Establishment (Addison-Wesley, 1996), pp. 280, 287-288.
    This book was reviewed in the March-April 1998 Journal, pp. 37-38.
8.	Quoted in: N. Gabler, An Empire of Their Own (1988), p. 350.
9.  Michael Parenti, Make-Believe Media: The Politics of 
    Entertainment (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), p. 30.
10.	Quoted in: M. Parenti, Make-Believe Media, p. 30.
11. Faisal Kutty, Bushira Yousuf, "Hollywood's View of 
    Arabs, Muslims," Toronto Star, Sept. 14, 1998. 
    Reprinted in "Other Voices" supplement to The Washington 
    Report on Middle East Affairs (Washington, DC), December 1998, p. S-10.
12.	Quoted in: Jack G. Shaheen, The TV Arab (1984), p. 7.
13. 1997 Britannica Book of the Year (Chicago: Encyclopaedia 
    Britannica), pp. 311, 739.
14.	Quoted in: J. G. Shaheen, The TV Arab (1984), p. 127.
15.	Norman F. Cantor, Sacred Chain (cited above), p. 401.
16.	Quoted in: J. G. Shaheen, The TV Arab (1984), pp. 127-8.
17. Quoted in: Richard H. Curtiss, A Changing Image: American 
    Perceptions of the Arab-Israeli Dispute (citied above), p. 145.
18. Joshua 6: 21-14. See also, for example, Exodus 32: 26-29; 
    Numbers 21: 2-3, 31-35; Deuteronomy 2: 34-35, 3:6, 7: 1-5, 
    20: 13-17; Joshua 8: 24-29, 10: 28-40, 11: 7-8, 14, 21-23; 
    2 Kings 10: 17, 30. For more on this, see: Mohammad 
    T. Mehdi, Terrorism: Why America is the Target 
    (New York: New World Press, 1998), p. 66.
19.	Quoted in: J. G. Shaheen, The TV Arab (cited above), pp. 67, 57.
20.	J. G. Shaheen, The TV Arab (1984), pp. 114, 70, 111.
21.	J. G. Shaheen, The TV Arab (1984), pp. 127, 62.
22.	Quoted in: R. H. Curtiss, A Changing Image (1982), p. 153.
23. Quoted in: J. G. Shaheen, The TV Arab (1984), pp. 122, 7, 
    and back cover.
24. For details see: Paul Findley, They Dare to Speak Out: 
    People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby (Westport, 
    Conn.: Lawrence Hill & Co., 1985). See also: Alfred M. Lilienthal, 
    The Zionist Connection (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978).
25.	M. Weber, The Zionist Terror Network (1993), esp. pp. 5-6.
26. Richard Wormser, American Islam: Growing Up Muslim in 
    America (New York: Walker & Co., 1994) p. 121.
27. Quoted in: Terry Allen, "Professional Arab-Bashing," 
    Covert Action Quarterly, No. 53, Summer 1995, p. 20.
28. Quoted in: T. Allen, "Professional Arab-Bashing," 
    Covert Action Quarterly, Summer 1995, p. 21.
29. T. Allen, "Professional Arab-Bashing," Covert Action
    Quarterly, Summer 1995, p. 21.
30. Ann Talamus, "War in the Gulf, Repression at Home: FBI 
    Targets Arab-Americans" Covert Action Quarterly, No. 36, 
    Spring 1991, pp. 4-8; R. Wormser, American Islam (cited above), p. 4.
31. F. Kutty, B. Yousuf, "Hollywood's View of Arabs, Muslims," 
    Toronto Star, Sept. 14, 1998 (cited above).
32. As an Arab I have faced ethnic-based hostility, from both Jews 
    and Christians, in my academic career. During the 1980s and 
    1990s, when I taught at four different southern California 
    universities and colleges, I was denied promotion.
33.	Quoted in: R. H. Curtiss, A Changing Image (cited above), p. 153.

* Abdullah Mohammad Sindi, a native of Saudi Arabia,
lives and works in California. He received bachelor's
and master's degrees from California State University, 
Sacramento. In 1978 Sindi received a doctorate in international 
relations from the University of Southern California. He has 
also studied at the University of Grenoble (France), the 
University of Poitiers in Tours (France), the University 
of Liege (Belgium), and at Indiana University (Bloomington). 
He also conducted research at the United Nations Institute 
for Training and Research (New York).
In Saudi Arabia Sindi served as a professor at the Institute
of Diplomatic Studies (Jeddah), and as an assistant professor
at King Abdulaziz University. In the United States he has
taught at the University of California, Irvine, California 
State University in Pomona, Cerritos Junior College, and 
Fullerton Junior College.
This essay is adapted from the first chapter of his
forthcoming book, The Arabs and the West: The Contributions
and the Inflictions (1999).



  

    

    

    
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