Western apologists for this sort of behavior are sometimes hamstrung by a fear of being described as one of Edward Said’s “Orientalists.” They betray their own liberal values by denying their universality. Others, in their naïveté, say that these incitements to murder are not widespread and must be seen in the context of the Arabic language, which can be given to flights of rhetoric. This signals their lack of understanding of the “Arab street,” the role of the mainstream Arab media, and a refusal to understand that when people who are full of hatred say something, they mean it.
