A tiny fraction of terrorist actors drove Arab stereotyping as default terrorists.

Evidence

As articulated first by law scholar Natsu Saito, the 9/11 terror attacks and the policies that followed “raced” Muslims as terrorists. The War on Terror and the resulting cascade of crusades examined in this book embedded this form of stereotyped threat globally, and consequently justified punitive action against Muslims by governments, vigilantes, and every societal element in between. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1120 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Across the twentieth century, Arabs have most often been seen as rich oil sheiks, sultry belly dancers, harem girls, veiled oppressed women, and, most notably, terrorists. The trajectory of Arab representations in television mirrors that in film. Early silent films that represented the Middle East, such as Fatima (1897), The Sheik (1921), and The Thief of Baghdad (1924), portrayed the region as faraway, exotic, and magical; a place reminiscent of biblical stories and fairy tales; a desert populated by genies, flying carpets, mummies, belly dancers, harem girls, and rich Arab men living in opulent palaces (or equally opulent tents). — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 70 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: White domestic terrorism still shapes immigration policy because Arabs are visually raced as terrorists; Twentieth-century Arab media portrayals fixated on exotic and terrorist stereotypes. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race…, 70; Stereotype-avoiding TV strategies still fail when plots center Arabs on terrorism (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• The War on Terror globally embedded a racialized terrorist stereotype of Muslims #corroborates (0.85) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1120
• The War on Terror racially constructed Muslims as terrorists. #corroborates (0.85)
• Twentieth-century Arab media portrayals fixated on exotic and terrorist stereotypes. #expands (0.80) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 70
• The Arab stereotype in cinema morphed from harem-keeping greed to the Muslim terrorist #expands (0.80) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 129
• Islamophobia reduces diverse Muslim individuals to a blanket presumption of terror suspicion #corroborates (0.80) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 148
• Stereotype-avoiding TV strategies still fail when plots center Arabs on terrorism #complicates (0.75)
• Sympathetic Arab representations became standardized during the War on Terror #expands (0.75)
• Labeling disparate actors all as terrorists obscures their distinct histories and contexts. #corroborates (0.75) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 834
• The American Arab-terrorist stereotype emerged from geopolitical events, not journalism #qualifies (0.70)
• The terrorist and the migrant fuse into one racialized Muslim type. #corroborates (0.70) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 33
• Single demonized figures like bin Laden personify Islamophobic ideology across contexts. #expands (0.70) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 882
• The Cold War-era terrorist archetype was Arab and Palestinian, not Muslim #complicates (0.70) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 619