Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary

Chapter 6, entitled "The Violent, Craven Jew," deals with the other side of the coin: how Arabs demonize Jews. Jews are aggressive, brutal, remorseless and cowardly. A major difference, however, is that through contact with individual Jews, Arabs often soften their views and even realize the danger of stereotyping. Israeli censorship is only partially effective in keeping away from the Arab population the most virulent propaganda published in the rest of the Middle East; smugglers make sure that young Palestinians receive an unhealthy dose of indoctrination as to the cowardice of the Jew. The massacre at Deir Yassin is kept luridly current. Palestine is romanticized and Zionist expansionism is hypothesized. Shipler finds many moderate West Bank Arabs concerned that textbooks are causing their children to drift into radicalism. He reviews a series of provocative examples.

Whereas most Jews are able to avoid...