The Real Roots of Arab Anti-Americanism 3/6
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The overall tally, in fact, is staggering: during the last half-century, in 11 of 12 major conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims, Muslims and secular forces, or Arabs and non-Arabs, the United States has sided with the former group.1 U.S. backing for Israel has been the sole significant exception to this rule. Yet what credit has Washington received for its aid? Arab anti-American radicals have distorted the record, ignoring all the positive examples and focusing only on U.S. support for Israel. Even Arab moderates, direct beneficiaries of U.S. aid, virtually never express gratitude for benign American measures -- or even mention them at all.
AN ENEMY OF CONVENIENCE
Why has the real record been so disregarded in the Middle East? There are several explanations. First, whatever the extent of Americans' failure to understand the region, Middle Easterners' inability to understand the United States has been greater. Throughout the region, leaders and movements have always expected Washington to try to conquer them and wipe out its enemies -- since, after all, this is what the locals would do if they controlled the world's most powerful country.
Second, it is important to remember how tightly information is controlled in the Middle East. It is hardly surprising that the masses, shut off from accurate data and constantly fed antagonistic views, have grown hostile to the United States. Those who could present a more accurate picture of America are discouraged from doing so by peer pressure, censorship, and fear of being labeled U.S. agents.
Third, Washington's real record is constantly distorted. The United States, for example, is blamed for the suffering of Muslims whom it protected in Kosovo and Bosnia. U.S. humanitarian efforts in Somalia are portrayed as part of an imperialistic, anti-Muslim campaign defeated by heroic local resistance.
Fourth, the real nature of the threats from which the United States protected Arabs is downplayed. Take, for example, Saddam Hussein, who has started two wars, killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Arabs, looted and vandalized Kuwait, threatened his neighbors, tortured and repressed his own people, used chemical weapons against opponents and civilians, fired missiles against population centers, and tried to develop nuclear arms so as to dominate the region. Despite his record, Arabs throughout the Middle East are constantly told by their leaders that the United States is the party responsible for Iraq's problems, and that Washington is the one seeking to dominate the Persian Gulf.
Finally, there is the attempt to reduce all American policy to a single issue: U.S. support for Israel. Israel's true nature and policies are also distorted as part of this picture. This latter element is critical to the salience of the first in anti-American rhetoric, for if one believes that Israel is an evil force seeking to dominate the Middle East, kill Arabs, and destroy Islam, it would follow that one would view American aid to Israel as a supreme evil. The truth, however, is that the United States has merely helped Israel survive efforts from Arab neighbors to remove it from the map. The U.S.-Israel relationship was in fact quite ambivalent for most of Israel's first quarter-century of existence, with the United States generally refusing to supply arms or other aid. The link only intensified in the face of hostile actions by Arab states, which aligned themselves with the Soviet Union and sponsored anti-American terrorism. And despite such hostility, the U.S. goal has always remained a mutually acceptable peace agreement between the Arabs and Israel that would ensure good American relations with both sides.
Radical forces in the Arab world have always rejected a peaceful solution, however, because they do not want Israel to survive or the region to become more stable. Such a result, after all, would undermine the radicals' chances of seizing power.
As this point suggests, Middle Eastern radicals have opposed the United States not because it has not worked hard enough to bring about a just solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, but for the opposite reason: because the radicals want to ensure that Washington fails to do so. This is why terrorism has always increased whenever it seemed that the diplomatic pursuit of peace might succeed. Hence Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon, urged by the United States, was greeted in the region not as a step toward ending occupation or achieving peace, but as a sign of weakness and a signal that Israel's enemies should escalate violence against it. The September 11 attacks, meanwhile, were planned at a time when the peace process seemed closest to success. It is no accident that Middle Eastern anti-Americanism peaked at the very moment when the United States was proposing to support the creation of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem. |
