The thing about rhetoric in Arabian countries is that much of the media's interpretation of it is a result of poor translations that are done by people who either don't know the langauge(s) perhaps as well as they should, or if they do, are not interested in making it sound as mundane as it perhaps should in the correct context of the language.
Sensationalism sells stories, and the mass media is well aware of this, often to an irresponsible degree. The recent financial crisis with the Northern Rock building society in the UK is a good example of this manipulation of stories. Some people were deciding to take their large sums out of the NR because they suspected something was up, and this might mean a drop in the interest rate they'd get. Of course it was not enough to simply report this in a mundane way for the media, they had to descibe it as a 'Panic', which of course was the catalyst for it actually then becoming a panic as everyone who was quite content to let their money stay where it was, then began thinking 'Oh my God, there must be something up if all these people are panicking as the media says'. And that aint
reporting the news, that's
creating it.
For many colloqualisms and ideoms in Arabic, there is no direct word-for-word translation, the phrasing in Arabian languages is often very poetic in comparison to Western phraseology (which is sort of ironic when you consider how many words we use that are Arabic in origin). As a result, a direct translation often sounds like much more than it is meant to when 'creatively translated'. A classic example of this was during the run up to the 1991 Gulf War, when some Iraqi pilots were quoted as saying something along the lines of 'We will drink the blood of our enemies' - of course the media picked up on this and tried to make it seem indicative of what 'savages' these people were, little realising (or more likely not really caring) that in a language where poetic analogies are common, a more realistic translation would have been to see it in the context it was intended, i.e. probably the equivalent of a US pilot saying 'We're going to kick their asses'. Now flip that one around for a second and imagine what an Arabian pilot would make of it if he took 'kick their asses' in the literal sense. He'd probably think 'WTF are they talking about?!! I thought we were going to be fighting in aeroplanes?!!'
Here's another very famous mix up between the US and an Arabian country, in this case Saudi Aabia. Being a famously 'dry' country as far as alchoholic beverages go, there is a massive market for soft drinks, notably a very popular US fizzy drink that comes in a bright red can, yup
that one, which some years ago had the advertising tag line 'Coke is Life - Enjoy Coca Cola. Now, when this campaign was being translated for use in Saudi, a local US advertising rep somewhat foolishly decided not to use a specialist translation service to get the phrase translated into the correct context for use in some arabic dialects, instead just asking someone to translate it word for word, so they did, not being aware of the context for which the translation was required (i.e. billboard posters along the highway advertising a refreshing soft drink). So these 'translated' posters all get printed up, imported into the country and start going up all over the place, with words to the effect (in Arabic) that 'If you drink Coca Cola, it will bring all your dead relatives back to life'. Of course you can imagine the outrage it caused out in the sticks of Saudi. As a result of this bungle, the advertising rep responsible in Saudi was damn near lynched by infuriated bereaved Saudis, and he had to be taken into protective custody and sneaked out of the country!
So don't take everything you 'hear' that is supposedly said by some foreign dude literally, especially in an Arabian country; the media wants you to be outraged and shocked by stuff, if you weren't, you'd never tune in to them again. Just remember, they don't call it a language barrier for nothing.
Chock