How do we know what we think we know about Islam and the Arabs? Movies and novels have long been a rich source of misinformation and eloquent prejudice. Novels like Eric Ambler's The Levanter, Frederick Forsyth's The Key to Rebecca and Daniel Easterman's The Last Assassin, as well as films like Cast a Giant Shadow, Jewel of the Nile and Operation Condor have fed on and refuelled such prejudice. Arabs and Muslims commonly feature as terrorists, religious fanatics, drug dealers, pimps and so on.  In the course of the last 50 years or so they have replaced the Nazis as hand-me-down villains.  Films in which Arab points of view are realistically and sympathetically presented, such as David O Russell's political action film Three Kings (1999) , set in the immediate aftermath of the first Gulf war, are hard to find.

The remainder of this article can be seen in Prospect magazine, February 2006 issue (link).