Silence isn't typical of Cairo cafes. Amid the blare of Arab pop music, the dice hitting the backgammon board and the clink of teacups on metal tables, just having an audible conversation can be tough. But these days dead silence from the patrons is not uncommon. In cafes with satellite TV, that hush comes every hour on the hour, when the news bulletin airs on the Qatari channel al-Jazeera, the pre-eminent Arab news network. At Cafe Lialina in the heart of downtown Cairo, the grisly footage of Palestinian corpses in the West Bank town of Jenin--mutilated, burned, rotting in the open...
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