Egypt’s Al-Akhbar: ’Thanks to Hitler’
By Jasper Mortimer, The Associated Press
CAIRO, Egypt - For one writer in the Egyptian press,
the identities of the perpetrators of September 11 were
obvious - and they were not Osama bin Laden and his
al-Qaida fighters.
"The Jews and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad are
behind this vicious attack on the United States," Gamal
Ali Zahran wrote in Egypt’s most respected newspaper,
Al-Ahram, on October 7. He offered no source.
Zahran, who teaches politics at Suez Canal University,
Ismailiya, was repeating a rumor that had been
circulating among Arabs since terrorists slammed planes
into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
He claimed several thousand Jews had worked at the
World Trade Center, but none went to work on
September 11 and not one Jew was killed that day. In
fact, many Jews were killed in the September 11
attacks, including four Israelis. Zahran declined to
comment to The Associated Press.
Zahran’s article was one in a series of anti-Semitic pieces
published in the Egyptian press since the
Israeli-Palestinian fighting began in September 2000.
The Israeli Embassy has complained to the government
many times about such articles. Before finishing his term
last year, Ambassador Zvi Mazel said the Egyptian press
is sowing the "seeds of hatred for the next 50 years."
President Hosni Mubarak says he cannot control the
Egyptian press. However, his government appoints the
editors of the three biggest circulation dailies -
Al-Ahram, Al-Akhbar and Al-Gomhuriya - and it owns
the newspaper printing houses.
Egypt was the first Arab country to make peace with
Israel, and has stood by the 1979 treaty despite
Palestinian-Israeli clashes it often blames on Israel.
But many ordinary Egyptians oppose "normalizing" -
forging cultural and business links in addition to the
political agreement. Allowing anti-Semitic comment in
the media may be the government’s way of letting its
citizens release frustrations that might otherwise be
directed at Egyptian authorities.
Al-Akhbar published one of the most anti-Semitic tracts,
headlined "Thanks to Hitler."
"Thanks to the late Hitler, who took revenge in advance
for the Palestinians on the most vile criminals on earth,
though we blame Hitler because his revenge was not
quite enough," Ahmed Ragab wrote last spring.
Jewish groups quoted the column in full-page ads in
Western newspapers, and Secretary of State Colin
Powell was asked in Congress why the United States
was giving $2 billion a year to Egypt, where
"government-sponsored newspapers support Adolf
Hitler and incite violence against Jews and Israel."
Ragab also refused to be interviewed, but his editor,
Galal Dewidar, said the column was not eulogizing Hitler
but vilifying Israel for the hundreds of Palestinians
killed in the current fighting.
"You mustn’t take it word by word. You must take it by
the feeling, the spirit. [Ragab] would like to say
somebody should tell Israel to stop," Dewidar said.
But why, critics ask, is such anger not directed at the
Israeli government rather than Jews all over the world?
One editor who makes the distinction is Hani Shukrallah,
the managing editor of Al-Ahram Weekly - the
English-language sister of Al-Ahram.
Shukrallah described the anti-Semitic rhetoric as "vulgar
populism," but said it sprang from Egyptian empathy with
the Palestinians.
"We’re seeing our brothers being killed and murdered
and we’re unable to do anything," Shukrallah said.
A professor of journalism at the American University in
Cairo, Abdullah Schleifer, said that if there was peace
between Israelis and Palestinians, "this stuff would just
disappear."
Al Akhbar is a state controlled newspaper, reflecting the views of the
EGyptian government.