So What do Arabs think of The Passion?

As if the editors of Atlantic Monthly had psychic access to my June 2004 thoughts back in April or whenever they planned the August 2004 issue (why is it that every magazine is sent back to us through a time machine from a few weeks/months ahead?), here's their excerpt of the Middle East Research Institute's "Reactions in the Arab Media to The Passion of the Christ":

Traditional Muslim belief accords Jesus Christ prophetic rather than divine status, insists that he was taken up to heaven before the Crucifixion, and frowns on artistic representation of religious figures. Nonetheless, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is a hit in the Middle East, where Arab reaction to the film--as documented by the Middle East Research Institute--has less to do with theology than with current regional politics. That is, Muslims seem to see the film as all about Israel and, to a lesser extent, Iraq. "The Palestinians are still being exposed to the kind of pain to which Jesus was exposed during his crucifixion," Yasir Arafat's media adviser recently announced. A columnist in the Syrian government daily Teshreen made similar comparison's between Gibson's Christ and those who are "crucified every day at the hands of the American and Jewish-Zionist executioners," adding, "Now the Iraqi people are facing the same ordeal and walking the same Via Dolorosa." One director in Qatar insisted that "the film does not depict Judaism or all Jews as responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus," [love those Qataris--ed.] but most of The Passion's most enthusiastic Muslim fans disagreed: Egypt's government-owned daily declared the film a "courageous challenge to the political, financial and media power of the Jews," and Kuwait's leading Shia cleric lobbied the government to let it be shown in his country--despite its conflicts with Islamic teachings--because it would present "a good opportunity to reveal the crimes committed by Jews against the Christ and many other prophets." But perhaps the most intriguing interpretation came from the Saudi journalist who wrote that The Passion of the Christ should persuade Arabs to stop blaming Jews for the Middle East's troubles. Why? Because "if the Jews had ultimate control over Hollywood and what happens there, as our fathers, grandfathers, writers and books say, a film against them would not be produced by the hub of the world's film industry."

Touching stuff from the Kuwaiti Shi'ite, no? And to think that we committed crimes against "other prophets" as well---though one wonders which ones he has in mind, since the majority of both Christian and Islamic prophets are taken from, er, the "Prophets" portion of the Hebrew Bible.

Btw, can anyone tell me who the Islamic prophets are aside from those taken from the Jewish tradition (including the apocrypha), plus Jesus and Mohammed?

Anyway, I don't think it would be premature on my part to declare a small victory (even if I might have unintentionally hurt the feelings of Serbian non-fascists). This is what happens when a piece of vile anti-Semitic propaganda is shown among populations trained to recognize (and rejoice at the sight of) anti-Semitic images---quite unlike homegrown rednecks who, to their credit I suppose, can't be made to feel malice towards Jews as a sort of Pavlovian response.