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Jul. 26th, 2004 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
novapsychePolls Apart
Opinion polls in the Arab world are a comparatively rare event, but last week there were two and their message was very clear: US foreign policy is a disaster.
One poll was commissioned by the Arab American Institute (AAI) and the other by the University of Maryland. Both were conducted by Zogby International, a US-based polling firm which interviewed 3,300 people in six Arab countries: Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In all six countries, an overwhelming majority of Arabs expressed an unfavourable view of the United States, ranging from 69% in Lebanon to 98% in Egypt, according to the AAI poll.
[...] There is no doubt that the driving force behind these negative attitudes is US policy in the region. Washington's stance on the Palestinians, Iraq and terrorism, and its attitude towards Arabs in general were all regarded very unfavourably in all six countries. The country-by-country figures for opposition to US policies range from 75% to 98% but are mostly in the upper eighties and nineties.
[...] The simple fact is that the US is losing the battle for Arab hearts and minds. No matter how many jolly tunes it plays for the Arab world on Radio Sawa, or how much it spends polishing its image through al-Hurra TV, it is not going to win people over. Only a radical change of policies will do that.
Opinion polls in the Arab world are a comparatively rare event, but last week there were two and their message was very clear: US foreign policy is a disaster.
One poll was commissioned by the Arab American Institute (AAI) and the other by the University of Maryland. Both were conducted by Zogby International, a US-based polling firm which interviewed 3,300 people in six Arab countries: Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In all six countries, an overwhelming majority of Arabs expressed an unfavourable view of the United States, ranging from 69% in Lebanon to 98% in Egypt, according to the AAI poll.
[...] There is no doubt that the driving force behind these negative attitudes is US policy in the region. Washington's stance on the Palestinians, Iraq and terrorism, and its attitude towards Arabs in general were all regarded very unfavourably in all six countries. The country-by-country figures for opposition to US policies range from 75% to 98% but are mostly in the upper eighties and nineties.
[...] The simple fact is that the US is losing the battle for Arab hearts and minds. No matter how many jolly tunes it plays for the Arab world on Radio Sawa, or how much it spends polishing its image through al-Hurra TV, it is not going to win people over. Only a radical change of policies will do that.