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Viewpoint - August 12, 2010
With Arab opinion like this, Obama needs media advice
The rhetoric of his Cairo speech has soured: the president
can only move the debate on with a sea-change in US attitudes
by: Jonathan Steele
guardian.co.uk
A year ago in Cairo Barack Obama made an impassioned appeal
for Arab goodwill and trust. Recognise I am a new type of
American, he said in essence, who understands your pain
and anger, and respects your culture and religion. "Islam
is a part of America," he declared.
"Let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian
people is intolerable... They endure the daily humili-
ations, large and small, that come with occupation," he
said later in the speech. Then, in a powerful sentence
he was to repeat to the UN general assembly, he said:
"America doesn't accept the legitimacy of continued
Israeli settlements."
No wonder Arabs were delighted. True, Obama made no
promises of US sanctions, aid cuts or other action to
reverse Israeli settlement activity, but they were willing
to give him time to show he meant what he said.
A year later the disappointment is massive. A poll taken
in six Arab countries in June and July shows the air has
gone from the Obama bubble. The percentage of Arabs with
a positive view of the US has sunk since last summer from
45% to 20%, while the negative percentage has risen from
23% to 67%. Only 16% call themselves "hopeful" about US
policy.
The survey is conducted annually by Zogby International
and Shibley Telhami at the University of Maryland. The
countries covered are among the region's least radical ?
Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the UAE
? and represent the more modern and affluent parts of the
so-called Arab street, with 40% of respondents using the
internet every day.
The pollsters did not ask why people changed their views
so rapidly. But a clue of sorts is in one of its most
remarkable findings. On Iran a majority were not convinced
by Tehran's denials of having a nuclear weapons programme.
The Obama administration will presumably be pleased to
learn that 57% think Iran is trying to make a bomb. What
will be more troubling for the White House is the finding
that only 20% think foreign countries are entitled to put
pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear programme and, even
more strikingly, that 57% believe it would be positive for
the region for Iran to have the bomb.
This is astonishing, at least for anybody who took at face
value the Washington line that Iran is perceived as the
biggest threat within the region. Bush and Cheney spent
years trying to ally Arab states against Iran, including
by attempting to make Shia/Sunni differences a major
political issue. Iran is of course a Shia country. Obama
continued the policy, but it has backfired. With the
exception of Lebanon, the countries in the poll not only
have huge Sunni majorities, they are the very countries
on which Washington has spent most effort to build an anti-
Iranian alliance. Their rulers may take the US line, but
their people do not.
It's true that support for Iran having nuclear weapons may
simply mean "Leave Iran alone". It may also be a message
to Obama not to go on falling for Netanyahu's diversionary
ruse that resolving Israel's dispute with the Palestinians
is a sideshow compared to the issue of Iran getting the
bomb. Most Arabs refuse to accept that order of priorities,
which is why the poll found 88% of its respondents named
Israel as the world's biggest threat, followed by the US
at 77%. Only 10% cited Iran.
Since his Cairo speech Obama's Middle Eastern failures
have been glaring. US pressure on Mahmoud Abbas to ignore
the Goldstone report on suspected war crimes during the
Gaza conflict was followed by Obama's refusal to condemn
Israeli piracy against the blockade-busting flotilla. A
moment of anger with Netanyahu for the announcement of
yet more illegal house-building in Arab East Jerusalem
was forgotten a few months later when the Israeli prime
minister was welcomed to the White House ? a frown followed
by fence-mending instead of a sustained campaign against
Israel's serial violations of international law and signif-
icant cuts in the annual aid programme submitted to
Congress.
It is easy to blame Obama, as though he alone had the
power to crack down on Israel's political elite. It is
easy, too, to blame the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee for its lobbying against critical US politicians.
Just as important is the pressure that pro-Israel
campaigners put on the mainstream US media. They warn
people off the very word Zionist as though only antisemites
use it and demand Israel be treated as a special country
whose politics deserve more sympathy than others.
In fact US publishers, editors, and reporters carry the
biggest responsibility for the rotten state of US policy
in the Middle East. The pro-Israel lobbies are powerful
and Obama weak mainly because Americans rarely get an
alternative view. On the rare occasions when Obama
criticises the Israeli government, newspaper editorials
and talk show hosts sometimes support him. How often do
they condemn him on the more frequent occasions when he
fails to criticise it?
It would be nice if Obama stuck his neck out, but he needs
a radical media to start a real debate. The sea-change in
US attitudes that the Middle East so urgently needs cannot
come from the White House alone.
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