BY ANY STANDARD DISASTROUS POLL NUMBERS...
Arab view of U.S. worsens since 2002 - poll
Fri Jul 23, 2004 03:52 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Arab attitudes toward the United States have deteriorated significantly over the last two years largely as a result of U.S. foreign policy, including the Iraq war, according to a new poll released on Friday.
"Why do they hate us? It's the policy, stupid," said James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute, which worked on the poll of some 3,300 Arabs in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The June poll found that favorable ratings of the United States fell dramatically since a previous poll in early 2002.
"We have seen an unfortunate evolution since 2002," said pollster John Zogby, who is James Zogby's brother. "They still detest policy but the numbers ... of Arabs and Muslims who view American features and people favorably is certainly down from what it was in 2002."
The United States invaded Iraq in March 2003.
U.S. policy on Iraq, terrorism, Arabs and Palestine drew extremely low ratings, while Arab attitudes toward U.S. science and technology, freedom and democracy, people, movies and television, products and education fared somewhat better.
Ratings of the United States dropped from 38 percent favorable to 11 percent favorable in Morocco from 2002 to 2004, the poll found; the drop in Saudi Arabia was from 12 percent to 4 percent; in Jordan, from 34 percent to 15 percent; in Lebanon, from 26 percent to 20 percent and in Egypt, from 15 percent to 2 percent.
Only in the United Arab Emirates did the favorable rating rise from 11 percent to 14 percent.
When asked what they considered the best thing about the United States, high percentages of respondents in all six countries said "nothing." In Saudi Arabia, 55.5 percent said they could think of nothing that was best about the United States.
The poll's error margin varied from plus or minus 3.8 percentage points to 5 percentages points, depending on the country polled.
The poll echoed concerns contained in the Sept. 11 commission report released on Thursday that said support for the United States in the Muslim world had "plummeted."
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