From the death sentence fatwa against Salman Rushdie to the ostracism of Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan, Irshad Manji and many other Muslim writers, why is it hard for Arab and Muslim writers, professors, intellectuals and average persons to speak out against suicide bombers, jihadists, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism in their countries?
Ali Salem, a brilliant Egyptian playwright has been boycotted by his own fellow Egyptian and Arab writers, 
What happened to the happy old days?
producers and media. Why would such a well-known and talented writer have to pay this price, after bringing laughs to millions of Arabs through his witty, whimsical and satirical plays? His sin was that he favored peace with Israel and wrote a book about it. That seems to be the plight of Arab peace activists.
What happened to the happy old days when Jews in Arab countries were the elite, le creme de la creme, movie stars, singers, writers, cabinet ministers, in what was dubbed la belle epoch? Why it was replaced by so much hatred, intolerance, ugliness and bigotry against the Jews, the State of Israel, and anger directed towards America?
Since the partition of Palestine, many Arab regimes have taken a hard line against the new-born State of Israel. Arab state media and propaganda machines have found it convenient to recycle crude anti-Semitic images for their public. The Palestinian cause has proven to be a very useful and convenient tool for the post-colonial regimes that followed. Till today, after decades of brainwashing, the Palestinian cause is a hot button for many Arab leaders marshalling their masses to burn American and Israeli flags.
The Palestinian cause has been effectively used by failing, dictatorial and oppressive Arab regimes to point the finger at an outside enemy, to deflect public attention from the nagging domestic issues, such as: failing economies; grave human rights abuses; high levels of corruption; squandering half of the national income on weapons (to crush the masses). This has all taken its toll on education, health care and a deteriorating infra-structure.
Conspiracy theories are rampant in the Middle East. Many people are made to believe that America and Israel are running the whole world and are behind every problem in their countries - from defective chewing gum to Farouk Hosny's failure to enter the UNESCO.
The late President Gamal Abdel-Nasser of Egypt imported former Nazi propaganda experts from the Third Reich and spread anti-Semitism throughout the whole region. Some Arab leaders were cheering for Adolph Hitler, hoping that he was going to liberate them from the British. The former Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, put himself at the service of Hitler and was sought as a war criminal after the end of World War II. Even Anwar Sadat, the peacemaker and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, was once arrested for being a member of a Nazi spy ring in Cairo. Moreover, later, the Cold War brought Soviet propaganda experts to many Arab nations, bashing the United States and, of course, the old favorite target since Czarist Russia's infamous forgery of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion - the Jews and the State of Israel.
Half of the Arab countries are under brutal military dictatorships that came to power by military coups and have been ruling for decades, such as Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, since 1969. These regimes are secularist. The other half of the Arab countries are under absolute monarchies that use religion to get legitimacy, such as Wahabbi Saudi Arabia. Whether secularist or seemingly religious regimes, they both champion the Palestinian cause and exploit religion for political objectives.
Amazingly, fundamentalist groups have been using religion and the Palestinian cause, as well. The so-called Arab opposition media uses a similar rhetoric to the state-owned media across the Arab countries.
The result has been the demonization and dehumanization of the Jewish people, and Israelis in particular, in the eyes of many people in that region. Hate speech has found its way through state-sponsored textbooks, brainwashing generations since the early forties.
It makes it almost impossible for an independent thinker, intellectual, moderate, liberal, secularist or writer to "sing outside of the choir". Those who dare to sing other than the official line would find themselves accused of apostasy, tarnishing the image of their country, arrested, tortured, fired from their jobs; they may end up in a concentration camp or, at least, in a lunatic asylum.
Saudi Wahabbi petrodollars have found their way through the media, academia and political circles in that region, and even in the West. Wahabbi petrodollars have influenced more than 60% of mosques and madrasas in 
Iran has been competing with Saudi Arabia for decades now.
America and elsewhere in the West; indoctrinating many in the intolerant puritanical, Salafist, literalist dogma made in Saudi Arabia. It is no wonder that impressionable young men from refugee camps take up arms, from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Egypt, Algeria and Morocco to Yemen and Iraq.
To make things worse, Iran has been competing with Saudi Arabia for decades now. Iran has supported Hamas, Hizbullah, the Syrian Ba'ath and Shiite militias in Iraq.
But what has the hate brought to the region? It actually worked like magic and entrenched oppressive regimes for decades, thus enriching the elite around these regimes beyond imagination. And it definitely did not help the Palestinian refugees, nor the impoverished millions of Arabs and Muslims - many of whom have no jobs, and are too young and too restless.