E/CN.4/1997/71 page 11 D. Racism and racial discrimination against Arabs 24. Most of the information received relates to the status of Arab Americans. The American-Arab Antidiscrimination Committee, in its 1995 report, 14 speaks of a resurgence of anti-Arab sentiment in the United States following terrorist incidents such as the 1995 bomb in Oklahoma City, which was immediately attributed to Arabs, and events relating to the crisis in the Middle East. The Committee also stresses that the media tend to lump Arabs and Muslims together with terrorists and spread an unfavourable image of Arabs: “Today, the media's villain of choice seems to be the Arab. Stereotypical images of Arabs have changed over the years from exotic belly dancers, to desert bedouins, to oil-rich sheiks. Today, the Arab is typically portrayed as a terrorist. The richness and diversity of the Arab culture is lost to such harmful stereotypes, which help construct a negative image of the Arabs among the American public. “Media stereotypes are not to be taken lightly, especially when they are as rampant and pervasive as in the United States media ... Instances of anti-Arab defamation in the media are too great to enumerate ...”. 15 25. The Committee also mentions the use of the Internet to spread propaganda against the Arabs in general and Arab Americans in particular. “Following the outbreak of the Persian Gulf war, the Internet was full of vicious, obscene and racist material.” 16 26. The Committee decries the discriminatory treatment of Arabs and Arab Americans by airlines in the United States, by security agents at airports and by the police in general, and discrimination in education, employment and housing. E. Anti-Semitism 27. The Special Rapporteur received from the Israeli Government a report from which he has taken the extracts below on major anti-Semitic trends around the world: 17 “Some of the trends noted in 1994 continued and seem to have become an acceptable part of reality: techniques for disseminating anti-Semitic propaganda are improving in sophistication in reaction to government policies of imposing bans and legal constraints, and links and coordination among extremist groups are being strengthened. Moreover, a distinction is still made between moderate messages aimed at the larger voting public and cruder messages designed for internal consumption in radical circles. The moderate messages touch upon sensitive points, such as foreign workers and the danger they allegedly pose to a country's society and culture, or the bearing they have on civil rights in that country. Candidates in electoral campaigns try to prove their attachment to authentic national and local elements, as opposed to foreign ones arousing fear and hatred, which are symbolized