Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary

Chapter 5, entitled "The Violent, Craven Arab," opens with an introduction to what Shipler hopes to achieve in Part 2, "Images." He will examine the "interlocking stereotypes that Jews and Arabs use to categorize and explain each other." Power is decidedly one-sided; the Jews have it and the Arabs do not. Prejudice abounds on both sides, established by decades of war and terror, and individuals vary in how bigoted or tolerant they are.

How Jews stereotype Arabs is examined first. They are fearsome, violent, immensely strong, duplicitous, cruel, and (paradoxically) cowardly. Israeli hardliners play up the Arabs' power, strength and wealth, lest the masses pity them and try to understand their motives.

Shipler examines how these supposed traits are depicted in textbooks, juvenile literature and adult literature. For adults, Arab persecutors replace the gentile persecutors found in paranoid ghetto literature.

He examines the...