Dag 15: Fanning the flame of Hate: Arab Media Portray War as Killing Field av Susan Sachs i NYTimes. Arabiske medier pisker opp en hatbølge mot USA og Israel som kan få alvorlige følger, også for dem selv. Det fremelsker selvmordsbombere fremfor reformatorer.

The Israeli flag is superimposed on the American flag. The Crusades and the 13th-century Mongul sack of Baghdad, recalled as barbarian attacks on Arab civilization, are used as synonyms for the American-led invasion of Iraq. Horrific vignettes of the helpless — armless children, crushed babies, stunned mothers — cascade into Arab living rooms from the front pages of newspapers and television screens.

In recent days, more and more Arabic newspapers have run headlines bluntly accusing soldiers of deliberately killing civilians.

The images, however, are not presented as fragmentary evidence of the evils of war but as illustrations of a definitive black-and-white view of the war and the United States. The way they are presented, and the language that accompanies them, amplifies their impact.

President Bush, in one Egyptian weekly newspaper, is shown on each page of war coverage in a Nazi uniform. American and British forces are called «allies of the devil.» Civilian casualties are frequently reported as «massacres» or, as another Egyptian paper said, an «American Holocaust.»

«The media are playing a very dangerous game in this conflict,» said Abdel Moneim Said, director of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. «When you see the vocabulary and the images used, it is actually bringing everybody to the worst nightmare — the clash of civilizations.»