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CounterPunch
November
12, 2002
A Horseless
Rider, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion & Imported Bigotry
by QAIS S. SALEH
The latest controversy to involve the Arab World
concerns a TV program "A Rider Without a Horse" that
started airing on Wednesday, Nov. 5th, the first day of the
holy month of Ramadan on several Arab satellite channels. The
source of the controversy is that the program is partly based
on "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", the old
forgery originating in Czarist Russia. Naturally numerous Jewish
groups, the US, Israel and other countries and organizations
have requested that the program be banned from the airwaves,
without avail. What was left out from the intense media coverage
is that there is significant opposition within the Arab world
for this program; this article will furnish an argument on why
Arabs themselves should oppose such a program and why they should
campaign to take it off-air.
Before delving in the reasons why Arabs
should reject the program, it should be noted that program timing
and medium could not be worse, broadcasting during Ramadan nearly
guarantees audiences in the tens of millions, and the widespread
coverage on the efforts to ban it has only widened its appeal.
Another real danger is that there has been a great trend in
Arab societies toward visual inputs of information, where satellite
television programs sometimes serve as the only conduit of information
to the Arab family, such a trend will ensure that such a program
will have credibility and that it will be viewed as historical
facts, which is exactly why it should not be broadcast in the
first place.
The main reason why we as Arabs should
reject this program and the text it uses, is that it is an imported
piece of anti-Semitic bigotry that was forged in one of the
darkest chapters in European history, it has nothing to do with
historical facts and more importantly with Arab world's tolerant
past where Jews were an integrated minority living in harmony
with Muslims, Christians and other religious minorities. As
a Palestinian currently living under a new Apartheid, I cannot
but reject any ethnic stereotyping and demonizing such as advocated
by the program, and I totally reject the notion that such programs
will strengthen the support of the Arab world toward the Palestinians,
any support generated by racism should be unwelcome by people
suffering from it. It is very unfortunate that while we as
Arabs have paid a heavy price for past European prosecution
of Jews, we are currently importing and reviving the ugliest
embodiments of that tradition of anti-Semitism.
Putting aside for a moment the amount
of damage this program is causing to the image of the Arab world,
it is morally and educationally wrong to introduce such intolerant
stereotyping programs, instead of furthering universal values
of tolerance and equality, we march in the opposite direction,
propagating baseless hatred via mass media. It should be emphasized
that the Arab- Israeli conflict is not based on religious rivalry,
but on the fact that there is an occupied land and people enduring
the last occupation on earth. The ferocity of the Palestinian
and Arab opposition to this occupation would be the same if
the occupiers were Muslims, Christians, or Buddhists instead
of Jews.
A big part of the trend of importation
of anti-Semitic bigotry (especially in times of heightened
Israeli-Palestinian warfare) is simply based in ignorance, because
of deficient history education and the lack of a culture of
self-learning; most Arabs have little or no knowledge and understanding
of the European past prosecution of Jews and how these events
are always resident in the Jewish psyche in particular and western
one in general. Such ignorance might explain but does not excuse
what "Rider without a Horse" is about, the producers
of the show might be thinking that they are trying to help the
Palestinians with anti-Israel piece. They are doing exactly
the opposite; they are affirming the views of the extremists
in Israelwho say that Arabs will never accept the presence of
Jews in the Holy Land and who are now advocating the forced
transfer (another term for ethnic cleansing) of Palestinians
from Palestine to elsewhere in the region.
In conclusion, there should be forceful
internal Arab action by wide sectors of the educated classes
to stop airing this tainted program, and it should be done for
solely internal reasons, not in the context of bowing to foreign
pressure. Bigotry should be rejected, regardless of who it is
directed against, feeding Arab families (including the children)
carefully measured doses of hatred is morally repugnant and
will eventually come back to haunt us when this cycle of bigotry
start enveloping the next target. Taking the program off-air
will be a victory for reason, universal values, and the old
Arab tradition of tolerance that now seem to be under constant
attack. This fight should be as much about our internal image
as about our external one.
Qais S. Saleh
is a business consultant currently living in Ramallah, Palestine
and may be reached at qaiss@hotmail.com.
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November 10,
2002
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