US-Muslim Relations at Worst Point Ever
Washington, January 22, 2004 -- Relations between the US and the Muslim world have never been worse, Shibley Telhami, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., said today. Telhami, who is also the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, spoke to the IRP Fellows in International Journalism.
In the spring of 2000, Telhami said, the population in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - longtime U.S. allies in the Arab world - were largely pro-American, with as many as 60 percent of the public saying they had confidence in the U.S., according to internal US State Department surveys. Telhami said his polling data now shows that those numbers have plunged to the single digits. By March 2003, only four to six percent of the public in the usually pro-American countries of Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Jordan had confidence in the U.S.
Telhami attributed the decline in large part to the invasion and occupation of Iraq and, above all, to the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. He pointed out that President George Bush's recent State of the Union address made no mention of Israel or the Palestinians. To many in the Arab world, he said, this only served to fortify the opinion that the Bush administration has willingly ignored the question of Palestine.
The Israel-Palestinian conflict is "the prism of pain through which [Arabs] see the world," Telhami said. He compared the significance of the Israel-Palestinian conflict in the Arab mind to the effect the attacks of 9/11 have on the psyche of many Americans. Though the Arab view may be a somewhat simplistic and distorted prism, Telhami said, the U.S. government must be able to empathize with these Arab concerns when making foreign policy.
Even as U.S.-Muslim relations approach their nadir, Telhami insists that a commitment to a robust peace process in the Middle East and the encouragement of cultural and diplomatic exchanges could recoup some of the confidence lost in the past four years. But Telhami said he remains skeptical of the current administration's proposal to win the hearts and minds of Arabs through American-sponsored broadcast media. We need to build bridges, Telhami said, "not broadcast propaganda."
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