Egyptian State-Run Magazine Compares Israeli Generals to Nazis

As the world watches to see whether Egypt becomes a beacon of hope for the region or descends into the dark night of Islamist tyranny, there are particularly distressing signs in Egypt's state-run press that relations with neighboring Israel could be poisoned by hate.

In a disgraceful example, the Egyptian weekly October Weeklyin its August 28, 2011 issue, published a front page article titled "The New Nazis: The Black Record of the Israeli Generals," by 'Ibrahim 'Abd Al-Ghani. The article contained incitement against Israel and Israelis steeped in the most vicious anti-semitic rhetoric and images.

MEMRI translated the article, and summarized its contents:

"All Israel's leaders, from Ben Gurion to Netanyahu, have been filled with a murderous hatred for Arabs instilled in them from youth, and have surpassed the Nazi regime in their cruelty and massacres."

Unsurprisingly, MEMRI found the Egyptian piece was "riddled with historical errors and inaccuracies." It also featured a doctored image of Netanyahu dressed as Hitler giving the Nazi salute (inset).

MEMRI translated the section titles and text of the hateful October magazine piece, some of which are cited below:

• "The Gang Leading Israel Has Outdone Hitler"

This section claims that the history of Israeli leadership has been worse than that of the Nazis. In support of this bizarre and grotesque claim, the author writes:

"They have massacred children, made women into widows, murdered men, occupied the land, desecrated the honor of women."

The author also writes in this section about the border altercation between Israeli forces responding to a terrorist attack and Egyptian police who were killed in the crossfire, which he called a crime.

• "The Jews Stormed Palestine While Our Backs Were Turned"

The author describes in this section what he alleged was an elaborate plan for the Jews to deceive the Palestinians to initially take their land, and then subsequent "storming" of Palestine by Jewish refugee groups from all over the world as part of the plot.

• "The Racism Absorbed by Israel's Generals in Their Youth Later Becomes Part of Their Nature"

There is a focus on Shimon Peres in this section. The author again references the Sinai-launched terrorist attacks against Israel, in order to make a point about Peres accepting responsibility for the deaths of the five Egyptian police officers:

"A few days ago... [Peres] openly apologized to the Egyptian army and to the families of the martyrs for the crime on the border in which a police officer and five heroic soldiers were killed."

That the Israeli government took responsibility for an accident and launched an investigation did not appear to the author as evidence of Israeli fairness. He merely cited the apology as further evidence of Israeli insidiousness.

• "The Record of Israel's Generals Is No Less Abominable Than That of the Nazis"

In keeping with his despicable theme of misrepresentation and outright lies, the author writes of Israel's generals that their record:

"Is still open, and it is no less abominable than the files on the Nazis in Germany or the Fascists in Italy."

You can read full transcriptions and more of the hateful Egyptian magazine piece in translation at MEMRI's site.

Hopefully, October magazine will not be read by many Egyptians, and those who do come across it will recognize it as intellectually vapid, morally disgraceful trash.

But it is a reminder that there are forces at work in Egypt that are much more interested in promoting evil than democracy.