Free Republic

But we are Semites ourselves!" That is what an urbane Egyptian journalist will likely reply to the charge that the Egyptian media is rife with anti-Semitism. But there are few places where Jews are blamed for so many of the world's ills, from carcinogenic pesticides to the war in Iraq. More distressing is that much of the pointing is being done by Egypt's self-described liberals -- the pro-democratic and anti-Islamist crowd on which the country's hopes for a more tolerant future supposedly rest. The most recent episode began on Oct. 2, when the Anti-Defamation League issued a press release reporting...

A new song released by a popular Egyptian singer claims the U.S. deliberately caused the destruction of the World Trade Center towers to make Arabs look bad. Sha'ban Abd Al-Rahim's new album recently was reviewed in the Cairo Times. The article was translated by the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute. Al Rahim's song "Kharittat Al Tariq" ("Road Map") includes the line, "Hey, people, it was only a tower, and I swear by God that they [the U.S.] are the ones who pulled it down." According to the published review, the song, which focuses on the Middle East road...

The August 9, 2003 edition of the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi featured an interview with Dr. Nabil Hilmi, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Al-Zaqaziq who, together with a group of Egyptian expatriates in Switzerland, is preparing an enormous lawsuit against "all the Jews of the world." The following are excerpts from the interview: [1] Dr. Hilmi: "… Since the Jews make various demands of the Arabs and the world, and claim rights that they base on historical and religious sources, a group of Egyptians in Switzerland has opened the case of the so-called 'great exodus...