While looking around on the Pew research site for background on another post, I found this very interesting fact from a previous survey:
The American public is not unaware that U.S. policies in the Middle East have strengthened anti-American feelings around the world in recent years. In a November 2005 poll, about four-in-ten (39%) of the U.S. public said that U.S. support for Israel is a major reason that people around the world are unhappy with the U.S. (though far more fingered U.S. wealth and power and the war on terrorism as major reasons). Another 39% saw it as a minor reason. Opinion leaders, questioned in the same survey, were more emphatic on this point. Fully 78% of members of the news media and 72% of security experts and military leaders interviewed saw U.S. support for Israel as a “major reason why there is discontent with the U.S. around the world.” Only the Iraq war was designated by higher percentages of the experts and leaders as a major source of global discomfort with the U.S.
In other words, twice as many members of the media, government, and military leadership than average Americans think that Israel is one of the main reasons for America-hatred.
Well. That certainly explains the news media bias, the State Department, the FBI investigations of AIPAC, Walt & Mearsheimer, and Jimmy Carter. Our media, political, and military elites are twice as likely to blame Israel for America’s bad images, whereas the average American is smart enough to blame the people who blame Israel.
Well said.
“In other words, twice as many members of the media, government, and military than average Americans think that Israel is one of the main reasons for America-hatred.”
Follow the money.
The average American pays for the Muslim world’s war on everyone else at the gas pump.
Members of the media, government, and military are more likely to be paid off by those same Muslims.
I think you might have overstepped the data a bit in this case, Meryl. The bit you quoted says what %age of those groups think US support for Israel is a reason for anti-Americanism. It does not say what %age of those groups think US support for Israel is wrong.
For the record, I agree that US support for Israel is a major reason for anti-Americanism. I also think that US support for Israel is 100% The Right Thing To Do, and the fact that a lot of people hate us because we support Israel demonstrates how irrational and twisted those people are.
I’m not getting your point, Wolfwalker. You seem to be calling me out on something I never said.
My point was that the media and govt. elites are twice as likely to believe that Israel is a main reason the world hates America than is your average American. Where did the rights and wrongs come into my post?
For the record, though, if you click on the link to the survey summary, you can see how many Americans think supporting Israel is the right thing to do. Alas, there is no link to the poll with any data about whether those same opinion leaders have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Israel.
Color me unsurprised about that lack of data.
Update: I changed “military” to “military leadership” in the post as leaving it the way it was may be confusing.
Meryl, you wrote: Our media, political, and military elites are twice as likely to blame Israel for America’s bad images, whereas the average American is smart enough to blame the people who blame Israel.
“Blame” is a word usually associated with the perception of who’s at fault, or who’s wrong. So when I read “people blame Israel,” it appears to me to mean the same thing as “people think Israel is in the wrong.” Is that not what you meant?
“Blame” is also another word for “to hold responsible.”
You are playing semantics with my words, and assigning them meanings I didn’t give them.
No, your interpretation is not what I meant at all. The point of my post is that twice as many of our elites think Israel is a major cause of anti-American feelings than do average Americans. The point of my post is that the elites are the ones that frame the discussion. They are the ones writing the articles and editorials and white papers. They are the ones leading the diplomacy and the military strategy and advising the president and Congress (or are in Congress). And twice as many of them think American support for Israel is a major cause of anti-American feelings around the world.
In other words, they are not on the same page as Joe and Jane Smith.
I say what I mean. Always.
Great post as always Meryl!
An interesting companion piece to this is the Pew Center’s research about the attitudes and opinions of US Muslims.
http://pewresearch.org/assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf
It found among other things that:
– 1 in 4 US Muslims under age 30 believe that suicide bombings to defend Islam are are acceptable in some cirucustances
– Only 40% of US Muslims believe that Arab men carried out the 9/11 attacks
To your point, the media reported this story as:
Most US Muslims Reject Suicide Bombings.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070522/ap_on_re_us/poll_muslim_americans_2
or
Pew Study Sees Muslim Americans Assimilating.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10330400
The idea that a lot of members of the American elite believe that US support for Israel is a major drag on US prestige is not new. State Dept. types have been arguing this since the 1940s, when Secretary of State George Marshall tried to convince President Truman not to recognize Israel.
I think that they are right, up to a point. The Arabs do resent American support of Israel. There is no getting around that. But it is naive to think that, without Israel, Arab hostilities or the Islamist agenda would go away.
gosh … the elites like to blame
Jews for their problems. And this
is news?
It has always been easier for leaders
to blame the Jews – or in this case,
the Jewish State – for their failures.
What is heartening is that the people
of the United States see through the
crap that the elites are trying to
shove down our throats.
Arab anti-Americanism would be just as strong if Israel did not exist. Nasser made Egypt into an enemy of the US even when the Eisenhower Administration was assiduously courting him and had an arms embargo on Israel. If you wanted to be a socialist dictator, as Nasser did, it made sense to make the USSR your patron and not the USA. Egypt has spent decades exporting anti-American propaganda to the rest of the Middle East, and since Egypt is the most culturally influential Arab country that is a significant factor in Arab anti-Americanism.
As for the Islamists, Sayyid Qutb was so horrified by such American decadence as mixed dancing at a church social in a dry county of Colorado in 1949 that he turned resolutely against the USA and the West in its entirety. The image of his horror at men mixing with yucky girls, as if he was a nine-year-old boy, reminded me of a line from Shaw’s “Caesar anbd Cleopatra.” Caesar comments on Britannicus that “He is a barbarian, and thinks the customs of his tribe are the laws of the universe.”
Historian Richard Fletcher, in his book on Medieval Christian and Muslim interactions “The Cross and the Crescent” says that the Arab amir of Shaizar in 12th Century Syria, Usama ibn Munqidh, was bewildered by the social freedom of Frankish women. So Qutb’s reaction was in good, approved, Medieval manner.