Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary

Chapter 7, entitled "The Primitive, Exotic Arab," examines the fear - but also fascination - with which Israeli Jews view the Arab. They are backward, vengeful, passionate and wily, and this image alternately disgusts and infatuates the Jews. Most Jews, even well educated and liberal ones, are so completely isolated from contact with Arabs that they cannot deal with those modern Palestinian Arabs who do not fit the stereotype of colorful Bedouin. Shipler provides examples from newspapers, textbooks, fiction and humor that keep alive the stereotype and the racial slurring this encourages. A recurring theme is that Arabs in daily life are practical and clever, but in their spiritual life unable to escape overstatement and exaggeration. A Jewish lawyer tells Shipler that polygraphs will not work on Arabs, since they show no "psychological signs of mendacity."

Shipler moves next to the widespread...