Egyptians Blame Israel For Just About Anything From Heavy-Metal Music To Aids, Egypt Willing To Believe Wild Rumors

When Egyptian police recently arrested 76 young suspected “Satanists” in the capital’s Heliopolis district, some Egyptian clerics and media were quick to blame Israel for subverting the nation’s youth.

Most of the so-called devil worshipers - accused of having group sex, taking drugs, growing their hair long and listening to heavy-metal music - have not been proved guilty of any Satanic leanings, but the scandal, linked by some to a Zionist plot, underscores the suspicion many Egyptians harbor toward Israelis.

Nearly 20 years after Egypt broke with the Arab world and signed the Camp David accords with Israel in 1978, the level of mistrust Egyptians still feel for the Jewish state remains extremely high, along with a willingness to believe almost anything negative about Israel.

Among the wildly false allegations spread lately in the Egyptian press were reports that Israel had injected 300 Palestinian children with the AIDS virus and accusations that Israel had exported seeds to spoil Egyptian fruit and vegetable crops and sent chewing gum made from aphrodisiacs to compromise the morals of young Egyptians.

And Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s government has done little to moderate the virulently anti-Israeli tone that runs through Egyptian society and the state-sanctioned press, even as the administration seeks to pressure Israel to conclude a fair permanent agreement with the Palestinians and to expand the circle of peace to include neighboring Lebanon and Syria.

“I think our relations will get better - I hope - as the peace process moves forward,” Nabil Fahmy, a senior adviser to Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa, said in an interview last week.

If the level of vitriol in the Egyptian media is any indication, there remains an astonishing degree of skepticism and opposition to normal relations with the Jewish state, leaving Israel’s diplomats in Cairo among the loneliest, most frustrated people in town.

Israel’s new ambassador to Egypt, Zvi Mazel, recently appealed to the Egyptian media to stop attacking Israel and start promoting dialogue. His efforts have shown some small success.

Maj. Gen. Hassan al-Alfi, Egypt’s interior minister, denied last week there is any Israeli link to the suspected devilworship cultists.

On Jan. 28, the semiofficial Al-Ahram newspaper, Egypt’s largest national daily, ran a front page apology to readers for reporting the story about Israel injecting Arab children with AIDS. Yet, the following day, Al-Ahram ran yet another major article by senior editor Salah EdDin Hafez repeating the allegations.