This is a link to an article at salon.com. Available to everyone.
Jon
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/04/04/arab_news/index.html
Pok�mon: Tool of the evil Jews!
Excerpt:
Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories -- many of them lunatic -- fill the pages of
Egypt's government-run press.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Aaron Tapper
April 4, 2002 �|� CAIRO, Egypt -- To the National Transportation Safety
Board, the 1999 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 appears pretty cut and dried. On
Oct. 31 that year, according to the NTSB's final report filed March 21,
copilot and first officer Gamil Al-Batouti intentionally plunged a Boeing 767
into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Nantucket, Mass., killing all 217
people on board.
Here in Egypt, however, the NTSB's take on the tragedy is anything but
conclusive. Official sources, such as the Egyptian government, the Egyptian
Civil Aviation Authority and government-owned EgyptAir instead blame the
crash on a mechanical malfunction. Several of the country's largest papers go
much further, floating the idea that "the Israeli Mossad" was behind the
attacks, infiltrating air-traffic control towers and somehow having the plane
shot down.
Post-9/11, Americans have learned of the United States' credibility gap on
the storied "Arab street." That is certainly true in Egypt, where the credi
bility problem has reached a boiling point in recent days. In the past week
alone, protesters have taken to the streets, furious at Israel's response to
Palestinian terrorism and what it views as the United States' uncritical
support of Israel. And on Tuesday, Egypt -- which in 1979 became the first
Arab country ever to enter a peace agreement with Israel, a plan largely
brokered by then-President Jimmy Carter -- announced it would suspend
diplomatic relations with Israel.
The most populous Arab country and one of the United States' most cherished
allies in the Arab world seems more estranged than ever. As recently as early
March, while visiting President Bush, President Hosni Mubarak claimed to
"fully agree" with American values such as freedom and integrity -- and not
without some reason: Egypt receives nearly $3 billion in U.S. aid every year.
But while U.S. officials have spurred Egypt to work as the mediator between
Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Egypt's role in the Middle East
conflict is often to fuel the fire in the region rather than quell it.
�
That role is nowhere more apparent than in Egypt's eight daily newspapers.
It's not a free press; it operates largely under government control, and
government restrictions hinder other competing newspapers from starting. And
it feeds its reading public a steady stream of the sort of bias that has
taken root in the Arab world and may be the biggest obstacle to any lasting
peace.
The newspapers aren't always filled with anti-American and anti-Israel
conspiracies. Some coverage of the Flight 990 fiasco, for example, while
defensive, at least tried to argue with facts.
In its final report, the NTSB never uses the word "suicide," but the NTSB
does use phrases like "as a result of the relief first officer's flight
control inputs" and "manipulation of controls," clearly implicating the
copilot, Al-Batouti. It's not a surprising claim; media reports have used
transcripts of the plane's flight data recorder, or "black box," to point the
finger at Al-Batouti, who said the phrase "tawalkat ala Allah" ("I rely on
God") at least 10 times in the flight's final minute and a half, words
interpreted by the NTSB -- and an American audience -- to be those of a man
with the darkest intentions.
But Yehia Al-Agati, the owner and chairman of National Aviation, a private
charter, cargo and air taxi carrier, was quoted in the March 7, 2002, issue
of the independent English weekly Cairo Times, saying, "A missing tail
section could cause the plane to nose dive." Al-Agati went on to attack the
conclusions of the NTSB, adding that the Arabic phrase repeated over and over
by Al-Batouti, "I rely on God," was not something a man would say before
committing suicide.
