More on Why do they hate us? Reader Adam Badawi writes, apropos my post on the virulently anti-Semitic libels being printed by Egyptian government newspapers:

As I am of partial Egyptian heritage I had a couple reactions to your post. First, the writer’s comments are obviously bigoted and delusion. It saddens me when I read the anti-Semitic bilge that often comes out of the Arab press. Second, I think you are incorrect to suggest that these articles contribute to the Arab hatred of America and Jews. As you note in your post Al-Gumhouriyya is a government run newspaper. For this reason a lot of Egyptians mock this particular periodical for the farcical nonsense it produces. It is the mouthpiece of a corrupt and authoritarian regime and as a consequence it has a substantial credibility problem. I do not mean to downplay the animus that exists in the Arab world toward Israel and American policy, and to somewhat lesser extent toward Jews and Americans. There clearly is problem here — I just don’t think that government propaganda is the source of that problem. I have many more thoughts on these issues, but I also have a dissertation to finish in the next month so I’ll have to stop here. . . .

I agree that we shouldn’t assume that all of the anti-American and anti-Semitic feelings in the Middle East are caused by propaganda from government newspapers. But I suspect that they do indeed have something of an effect, certainly not on everyone, but on quite a few. Even if a lot of Egyptians mock Al-Gumhouriyya, quite a few others might be more open to its message. I of course can’t be sure, since I’m not remotely an expert on Arab public opinion; and my correspondent might be much more knowledgeable about this. Still, it seems to me that these sorts of attacks are indeed likely to have an aggregate effect.