How's this for a grossly generalised history?:

Arab countries fall behind European, become militarily weak. Because of the holocaust, Israel is created on Arab land, and Arabs can do nothing about it. In four wars with Israel, Arabs get clobbered every time. Israel becomes a festering wound of Arab impotence, in particular because of the settlements and treatment of Palestinians. Arabs start to identify more and more with Islam because of the failure of more or less secular Arab dictators. USA backs Israel, making Arabs hate USA.

Meanwhile, many MENA residents migrate to Europe. Many are poor and uneducated, and have a hard time getting along with natives. Severe ghettoization occurs. The immigrant children are greatly embittered by their kafkaesque fates, and many find their hatred for the country they grew up in validated in extremist forms of Islam on the rise in the Middle East and imported to Europe.

Bush is elected, and starts looking for a war. Al-Qaida scores a hit in 9-11, calling it a strike for Palestinians, and triggering fear, hate and hysteria in USA. Warmongering hardliners gain the momentum, and roll over softline Democrats like they aren't there. USA invades Afghanistan, then Iraq on thin pretexts later debunked. Iraq slowly disintegrates.

As the Middle East heats up, the conflict is imported to Europe. Some radicalised immigrant children see these invasions as gross injustices to which the due response is violence, and since they hate these Western countries anyway, no problem. As bombs start blowing in Europe, and many 'plots' are uncovered, the natives become fearful and hate-filled against people who look middle-eastern, since Islam is constantly envoked by the terrorists. Natives and Muslim immigrants go down together on a hate-propelled downward spiral of vengeance. Europe is washed in blood once again.

E: i knew of the first incident but the second is a bit sureal. and people ask me why i refuse to speak arabic in public these days!

Klaus: good riddance. who needs europe anyway? also, i believe you left the bit out about Israel making a huge PR blunder with war #5 (or was this #6?)

pix and interview of the Manchester students in the Mirror

left out a lot of things. Pogroms, Communism and the Cold War, Pan-Arabism, Saudi/Salafi oil money, Evangelism, Hollywood stereotyping, Pakistan/India. Hey, you try summing up world history in four paragraphs. :)

eerie,

You are definately right about the American media presenting only simplistic explainations for this area, but that should not be surprising, since they rarely present anything else even for stories that only deal with America.

And, speaking of "rarely present[ing] explanations more complicated than the usual", you may not have seen this story from the BBC at least suggests that maybe the passengers had some reason other than simple Islamophobia for complaining about the two men on the flight to Manchester.

Eerie: "recall they are not yet required to wear giant crescents on their clothing"

No, but there is strong support for similar:

http://news.aol.com/gallup/story/_a/anti-muslim-feelings-fairly-common-in-us/20060810154009990001

Brn: True, American news is mostly feel-good human interest garbage anyway. Actually, what's even more amusing is comparing CNN-US and CNN-International. The latter has far more substance (which begs the question, why are Americans only interested in watching fluff?)

As for the BBC article, looks rather like hearsay (afterwards, my wife talked to a woman who said she sat next to them and she heard them say X). Does not explain why some passengers refused to board in the first place.

As well, I would note the following from the Mirror article:

The pair, studying for degrees at Manchester's Umist institution, believe the scare was sparked by an elderly lady sitting nearby.

Khurram said: "We were chatting away in Urdu and she kept looking at us.

"At first I didn't really take any notice. I just thought perhaps she'd never seen an Asian person before."

Sohail added: "She had to move to let us sit down and I knew straight away that something was bothering her.

"I tried my best to ignore her but she started asking me questions like where we lived and how long we had been in Malaga.

"When I told her we had only gone for the day she became even more suspicious. She kept saying that was a strange thing to do.

"Suddenly she got up and walked toward the cockpit."

mas: Hmm, lots of interesting info in that article, esp the conclusion that people who know actual Muslims (e.g. beyond TV) have more positive attitudes towards them (except when it comes to treatment of women, hmm).

Could be an entry all by itself.

E -- You noticed the same thing (re: women).

General -- Incidentally, the comment that may have frightened the woman, from that story, was something to the effect of this was the last 30 minutes of their lives, as they were at gate awaiting departure take-off on an airplane.

I know I say that very think -- and certainly think it -- before just about every airplane flight while it's at the gate. And that has nothing to do with terrorism, bombs, the middle east, hijacking, sabotage or anything else, and certainly not of any desire to see that happen, nor would I think of it that way. And it is not entirely a joke.

It is probably a not *very* rare thing to hear from flightphobes talking to a seat companion.

_________________________________________
OK CAT CAT CAT already. Jeez.

Also this week-- Iraqi-American architect and blogger Raed Jarrar was refused permission to board a JetBlue flight until he removed a T-shirt saying "We will not be silent" in Arabic and English. One of the airline/security staff told him "you can't wear a t-shirt with Arabic script and come to an airport. It is like wearing a t-shirt that reads "I am a robber" and going to a bank."

The rest of his account is available here.

Friom Raed's account of his visit to Syria:

They said: "you better get the hell out of here unless you want us to make a scene". I tried to explain that we are the "good" Americans who are against the war, so they said go back home and change your government. "you can't come here visit us in a shelter that we were sent to because of your tax money and your bombs, and expect us to be nice to you".

Sounds like profiling cuts all ways.

2nd thoughts on the students, £150 on a day trip? though maybe roce wasn't so bad...