Journalist Rami Khouri this week bemoans the western image of Arab countries as being antagonistic to the existence of the State of Israel. Writing in the Jordan Times, Khouri observes: "In the mass media and most corridors of political power, we in the Arab World continue to be judged heavily on the basis of our attitudes and policies towards Israel and the modern Jewish experience." He then cites specific examples: "When the mass media... mention Jordan and Syria at all these days, they tend to mention these countries only in relation to three specific events ? Jordan's prevention of anti-Israeli demonstrations, a planned gathering in Amman about Holocaust revisionist history, and Syrian President Bashar Assad's recent public criticisms of Israel and the Jewish people (today and in the past)."
According to Khouri, the identification of Arab states as obsessed with Israel "in turn, feeds a cycle of Arab anger because people in our countries feel doubly degraded ? first because we feel that Western powers tend to ignore our political complaints about Western acquiescence in Israel's illegal or predatory actions, and second because the Western world then tends to notice us mainly when some in our societies do something critical in relation with Israel, i.e., we matter mainly, or only, because of our proximity to Israel."
According to Khouri, the identification of Arab states as obsessed with Israel "in turn, feeds a cycle of Arab anger because people in our countries feel doubly degraded ? first because we feel that Western powers tend to ignore our political complaints about Western acquiescence in Israel's illegal or predatory actions, and second because the Western world then tends to notice us mainly when some in our societies do something critical in relation with Israel, i.e., we matter mainly, or only, because of our proximity to Israel."