WORLD The
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TODAY
STRUGGLE FOR ARAB HEARTS AND MINDS
Mohamed El-Doufani
Resentment Grows
A growing tide of protest has swept across the Arab world at western
policies towards Israel and the Palestinians. Far from winning hearts
and minds in the aftermath of the attacks on America last September,
the battle has been lost. This dangerous gulf between the two views is
probably wider than for half a century.
S
eptember 11 2001 will be remembered for
many things, not least of which is the devastation
caused by the attacks in New York and Washington
and the audacity of the perpetrators. Historians will see
it as the date on which a new approach in international
politics was ushered in – the ‘war’ on terrorism. This finally filled the
post-Cold War vacuum in the world order, defining relations between
states and overriding previously insurmountable obstacles between
the major powers, such as NATO’s eastward expansion.
However, for many on both sides of the Atlantic, it will also be
remembered as the moment at which they woke up to a huge gulf
in perceptions and understanding between the west and the Arab
world. For them, the fact that the perpetrators of the attacks were
western-educated, middle class citizens of traditionally pro-
western countries like Saudi Arabia was almost as shocking as the
devastation of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
The new reality as seen by western decision-makers was
summed up by Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel who, on
his first visit to the US following the attacks, said that the west was
‘losing the struggle for the hearts and minds of the Islamic
countries’ and called for action to ‘bring hope to the region.’
America and some European countries, notably Britain,
embarked on a two-pronged strategy to win Arab hearts and
minds. The first part was aimed at convincing Arabs and other
Muslims that the ‘war’ on terrorism was not a war against Islam,
thereby mobilising support for military action against perceived
havens of terrorism – in the first instance Afghanistan. Hence
From the May 2002
issue of The World
Today, the monthly
magazine of The
Royal Institute of
International Affairs
British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s tours of the Middle East and the
Indian subcontinent.
The second part of the strategy was pursued principally by the
US and focused on ‘educating’ people in the Arab world about life
in America. It included an intensified public diplomacy campaign
in the Middle East, with US diplomats ‘making the case for America’
and demonstrating ‘the kind of society that we are, in terms of
tolerance, in terms of the opportunity that we offer to people of all
faiths and of all national origins,’ to quote US State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher.
It also involved setting up bodies such as the Office of Strategic
Influence (OSI). However, this was soon dismantled after reports in
the New York Times and other American media suggested that part
of its role was to ‘provide news items and possibly false information
directly to foreign journalists and others abroad in order to bolster
US policy and the war on terrorism.’
Despite all this, there can be no doubt that the gulf between the
western and Arab worlds is now wider than at any time since the
Second World War.
As the results of a Gallup poll conducted in nine Arab and
Muslim countries during December and January showed, there is
widespread dislike of the US and President George Bush, with most
respondents describing America as ‘ruthless, aggressive, conceited,
arrogant, easily-provoked and biased.’ These views are reflected
even in the pro-government media of the most pro-western Arab
countries. Thus, while the Saudi pro-government newspaper Arab
News describes Blair as George Bush’s ‘loyal British sergeant’, the
state-owned Egyptian daily Al-Akhbar, in an editorial on April 3,
had this to say:
‘Never before has a US administration been so hated as that
of George W. Bush... The September 11 attacks happened
during his term, but [he] failed to see their significance. Had
he understood the significance of these attacks, he would not
be now giving full backing to [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel]
Sharon, the world’s leading terrorist.
‘Under George W. Bush, pro-Israeli influence escalated in the
Pentagon, and the ‘new right’ became more vocal in its
hatred for the Arabs and Muslims. Look at what is happening
in the Middle East. Millions have taken to the streets,
expressing more venom against the United States than
against Sharon and Israel... Bush’s support of Sharon has
encouraged the latter to attack the Palestinian people, the
Palestinian Authority, and Yasser Arafat...
‘George W. Bush claims that he is fighting terror. Actually, he
is creating new sources of terror. And, the United States will
pay for that error eventually.’
So, what went wrong with the western strategy? Two principal
reasons can be deduced. First, it appears to have been based on the
erroneous presumption that the gulf between Arabs and the west is
because of Arab ignorance of western – in essence, American – society
and culture. However, as US journalist Susan J. Abulhawa put it,
rather than failing to understand the nature of western societies:
‘The truth is that Middle Easterners would like a little of the
freedom we have. Palestinians would rather not live under a
brutal occupation supported by our tax dollars. Saudis and
Egyptians too would like to have freedoms denied by our
friendly Arab dictators. The terrorists of September didn’t
attack our freedom or our democracy. They were heartless
murderers who wanted to punish us, not for our way of life,
but for how we have treated, and are treating, them.’
So, the real problem for western politicians is arguably not Arab
ignorance of the west, but the reverse – Arab resentment based on
an accurate understanding of western policies. Thus, in an open
letter to US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice published
in the Saudi pro-government newspaper Al-Jazirah last December,
a Saudi writer said:
‘What some people know about you is that you are an unjust
and arrogant power that supports Israel blindly. You have not
shed a single tear over the death of Muhammad al-Durrah
when the Zionist soldiers, who are receiving billions of US
aid, killed him while he was in the arms of his father. You
have not blinked by Sharon’s killing of Palestinian children or
the destruction of their homes. And now he is kissing peace
goodbye with the blessing and the support of your
administration. Europe, giving in to your pressure, has sacked
the two peace officials in the occupied territories and given
Israel a free hand to slaughter and kill the defenceless
Palestinians. What people know about you is that you apply
various standards and use the right of might and the right of
the veto unjustly. So how could you ask people, who only
know this ugly image of your foreign policy, to like it and
express positive feelings toward it if all they have seen from
it are threats against their religion and homeland and insults
to their dignity in the US media?’
Hence the second – and related – reason for the failure. In trying
to win over the Arabs, western leaders were unwilling to
Mohamed El-Doufani acknowledge or address the causes of the
works for BBC Monitoring pent-up anger and resentment in the Arab
www.monitor.bbc.co.uk world towards their countries, especially
specialising in Middle America, which had been building up long
East politics and Russian
before September 11. At the core of this
and US foreign policies. resentment lies the burning issue of the
Palestine-Israel conflict, which the overwhelming majority of Arabs
blame Britain for creating and the US for sustaining through its
open-ended support for Israel.
To be sure, both Blair and Bush have spoken of the need for a
viable Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel. But people in the
Arab world remember well George Bush senior’s high-flown
rhetoric about a new world order’ and his unfulfilled promises to
resolve the Palestine problem when he was trying to rally Arab
support for a military solution to the Iraq-Kuwait crisis in 1990.
Similarly, Blair’s and Bush junior’s references to a viable
Palestinian state, first on the eve of military action in Afghanistan
and lately amid talk of a new attack on Iraq, have been seen as a
ruse intended to win Arab backing for another assault on Baghdad.
This would aim at replacing President Saddam Hussein with
someone more acceptable to the west. To quote the Egyptian
newspaper Al-Akhbar:
‘Washington is trying to offer the Arabs tranquillisers
ranging from Security Council Resolution 1397, which
included a ‘vision’ to establish a Palestinian state, to efforts
to arrange a truce between Israel and the Palestinians and
promises to arrange a meeting between Yasser Arafat and
Dick Cheney some day.
‘The timing of these tranquillisers was no coincidence. The
real objective is to...pour cold water on Arab anger at Israeli
crimes in order to set the stage for a military attack on Iraq.’
In a nutshell, the west has failed to win the struggle for Arab
hearts and minds not because it failed to pursue the right
information policies, nor because it failed to tell the Arabs about
the virtues of western democracies, but because it has failed to
address their long-standing political grievances.
On March 22 the US government launched its latest project to
penetrate the Arab mind: the Middle East Radio Network, Radio
Sawa. Its declared aim is to teach young Arabs ‘the truth about
America and what it stands for.’ Like its predecessor, it will fail to
address the very real grievances that continue to divide the Arab
and western worlds. WT
This article first appeared in the May 2002 issue of The World Today, the
monthly magazine of The Royal Institute of International Affairs. It
remains the property of The Royal Institute of International Affairs and
may not be used, sold, licensed, transferred, copied or reproduced in
whole or in part in any manner or form without prior consent.
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