Is the "hate" towards "the West" as a whole?
The article you have posted from The Nation says:
Europe has yet to experience mega-terrorism of the 9/11 sort. It probably will before long. For it is the West as a whole, and not just the United States, that is hated.
A recent poll says the above statement is quite incorrect. Please find below excerpts from an article I posted on 8 October:
Arab opinion of West: yes and no
Karen DeYoung, The Washington Post
Tuesday, October 8, 2002
They like the freedoms and values but not policies, poll finds
WASHINGTON A comprehensive survey of attitudes and opinions in the Arab world has found that Arabs look favorably on U.S. freedoms and political values, but have a strongly negative overall view of the United States based largely on their disapproval of U.S. policy toward the region.
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The survey's author, the American public opinion firm Zogby International, said that Arab views did not reflect "an anti-Western sentiment at work" and noted that France, Canada, Germany and Japan were among countries with highly favorable ratings.
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The United States, Britain and Israel were viewed unfavorably in all eight countries surveyed, including Kuwait, where a U.S.-led international coalition drove out Iraqi occupiers during the Gulf War in 1991.
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The results appeared contrary to the basic thrust of stepped-up "public diplomacy" programs that the Bush administration and Congress have promoted since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The programs rest on the premise that anti-American views in the region stem largely from lack of knowledge about American values.
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Although the Arab world has been the subject of numerous marketing surveys, there have been few, if any, widespread inquiries into values and beliefs. Pollsters conducted face-to-face interviews last spring with 3,800 adults in Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Egypt and among Israeli Arabs. They were asked 92 questions covering their values, political concerns, mood and outlook, self-definition and how they viewed the world. Results of the survey, sponsored by the Saudi-backed Arab Thought Foundation, were made public during the weekend.
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Asked what the United States could do "to improve its relations with the Arab world," respondents focused largely on what they saw as a general unfairness toward and lack of understanding of the region, and a particular bias toward Israel in the Israeli-Arab conflict. |
