Last week I returned to Finland after visiting family in the U.S. where I grew up. During my visit, I was briefly exposed to American news, specifically Fox News and CNN.

I happened upon a discussion of the Middle East crisis on Fox News as I was switching through channels. Among the participants in the discussion were Oliver North and Dan Senor. I sat listening without knowing much about any of them, presuming they were men whose words and feelings would hold significant influence and credibility with their American audience. The tone and the intentions that could be felt behind their words scared me. Their dialogue was bombastic, saturated with emotionally charged speech, glorifying the indiscriminate bloody assault being carried out by Israel on the people of Lebanon and Gaza, shaming the US for not partaking militarily by Israel’s side in the assault and calling for full US military involvement in an all-out war together with Israel to wipe out the “rogue states” surrounding Israel, wholly lacking in solid facts and sound reason or judgment. They delved further into the imagination as they began to speculate on a potential threat of “pseudo-allies,” such as Egypt, should such countries be swayed against the US.

To add to that, I happened to catch Paula Zahn on CNN interviewing the Syrian ambassador to the US. I was shocked by the emotional incontinence which she displayed, as a deliberate tone of hostility was leaking out of her mouth with her words and sullying the entire nation. She spoke to the ambassador insultingly, as if to a guilty child whom she was trying to pry her own predetermined truth out of.

There are two issues that are profoundly concerning when this is what is interpreted as news. The first issue deals with the impact that the tone and perception emanating from the speakers on the news have towards Arabs and Arab countries; things absorbed by the listener, but never spoken in word. While the discussion on Fox News was devoid of facts and sound reason, channeled emotions and their underlying implications were abundant. There was a clear implication that the participants speaking of Lebanon, Syria and other Arab Middle East countries did not perceive these countries as being comprised of humans, but of some sort of subhuman animal or bacteria and that it was the noble duty of the US and Israel to wipe them out. The participants stretched the imagination with irrelevant speculation and insubstantial dialogue designed to sow fear and anger into the hearts of listeners and so to form the opinions that the speakers desired their audience to have. No facts are stated or sought and emotion is used as the sole basis for opinions and actions. Growing up during the Cold War in the United States, I was taught that this news was the news of communists.

The second issue of concern with this interpretation of news deals with the victims of this propaganda…I mean news. Arabs across America, across the world, watching this news may not be able to articulate the implications, but they can feel themselves and their people being spoken of as subhuman entities to be wiped out. Such an insult goes beyond words and breeds hatred and a necessity for self-defense against the predator. There is no mystery why Hezbollah and Hamas exist; this “news” sows fear in the hearts of its victims too.