The US administration still seems puzzled by Arab and Muslim repugnance. The matter is really not so difficult, though, says Gamil Mattar* Amid the escalation in Palestinian-Israeli violence, a US delegation led by Ambassador Edward Djerejian came to the region in search of an answer to the question that still baffles the Americans, but almost no one else. The answer to "why do they hate us?" can be found in many of the speeches by US leaders and in US foreign policy, not only for the Middle East but in Europe and elsewhere. It is good, perhaps, that the Americans can sense the antipathy. What is alarming, however, is how they phrase the question. They still insist that the hatred is omnipresent, that all Arabs hate all Americans. Thus put, the question is misguided, and is likely to invite misguided answers. Curiously enough, the US delegation posed the question in Egypt and then Syria at a time when US Congress was renewing its attack on Syria and just as Washington was issuing a decision to freeze the assets in European companies of a number of Hamas leaders. Ordinary Arabs were bound to feel that such a decision, taken by none other than the US president, was calculated to send a particular message. The decision aims to make the US neo-con government look more attractive to Jewish voters and supporters of Israel's Likud. It was taken at a time when the US domestic situation was deteriorating and international criticism -- not hatred -- of US policy was running high. The hawks in the US government, who take decisions or encourage the president to take decisions that are humiliating to the Arabs and Muslims, in fact reinforce the significance of the why-do-they-hate-us question Djerejian brought with him to the region. There are people who advise President Bush to take decisions that can only spread chaos and cause further problems for US policy. They are in a position, of course, to advise the president to work to restore calm and stop provoking the Arabs. Had they done so, Djerejian would have found his interlocutors more sympathetic and less caustic in their criticism, although the Arabs tend to sugar-coat their displeasure, due to their traditions and also to the current situation in the region. It was clear to Djerejian and his delegation -- which includes Jews, Muslims, and Christians -- that the feeling among the Arabs they met was one of incredulity rather than hate. What the overwhelming majority of Arab interlocutors said was clear, particularly when discussing the roadmap, this charade that started out as a quadripartite initiative before taking a life of its own. The roadmap, or what it has become, is new evidence that the US is following a policy that aims to spoil any remaining goodwill among the Arabs. The hopes the world pinned on US, European, and Arab initiatives have been dashed. The frustration one now senses in all Arab capitals is evidence enough that the roadmap is at an impasse. I believe that the US delegation that came to the region to investigate the cause of the much-hyped hatred has by now sensed the pain the Arabs feel over Washington's Likud- pandering statements, positions, and policies. The Arabs, as a whole, feel they lack the leverage they need to conduct a constructive dialogue with the United States. They are not secretly satisfied with the ongoing events, as some well-known columnists so arrogantly claim. Arab officials are actually concealing their wrath, so as not to stir up public sentiment further against the United States. One of the people who attended a meeting with Djerejian said that he almost interrupted the discussion to tell the Americans, "don't make us hate you." On the other side of the globe, President Bush was harping on, "Israel has the right to defend itself." Not once has he mentioned that self-defence does not entitle the Israelis to kill Palestinian children, wreak havoc on the region, and strain the ties between the US and Middle East countries. Washington commends Israel's right for self-defence each time the latter sends its troops rampaging into Palestinian areas. In the same breath, it condemns Palestinian terrorists for retaliating against Israel's assassinations, home demolitions, reoccupation of towns, closure of crossing points, imposition of a blockade, and torture of men, women and children. The Palestinians are called terrorists for avenging their dead, for waging a liberation war, and for killing Israelis, and they are a people who live under political, economic, military, and regional blockade. Meanwhile, the Israelis, who kill the Palestinians in cold blood, are not called terrorists, for they only act in self-defence. Another participant in the meetings with Djerejian points out that the Arabs are not asking America to love them, but just to give them enough time to prove that, if fairly treated, they are likely to reciprocate. It seems, however, that some of the officials in Washington do not want to give the Arabs a chance to clear their name. Some Americans of Arab and Muslim descent have objected to the appointment of Daniel Pipes to the US Institute for Peace, affiliated to Congress, warning that such a move would undermine the ties between the government and the Muslim and Arab community. The hawks insisted on Pipes's appointment, and had their way. Didn't President Bush pause when he made this decision to consider that his popularity is waning and that his foreign policy was coming under global attack? Didn't he pause to consider that he shouldn't make things worse, at least in the Middle East? Did Madeleine Albright go a bit too far when she said a few days ago that President Bush was a disobedient son who ignores his father's advice? Mind you, no such criticism has ever been voiced by Arab or Muslim officials -- current or former -- or by any news analyst or policy-maker in our part of the world. This opinion, coming as it did, from a respected US official, an expert in international affairs, and a professor of international relations, is remarkable. Albright indicated that Bush's policy on the Arab world, terror, and Iraq is totally erroneous. What she didn't say was that, under normal conditions, Bush's counterparts in the Arab and Islamic world should have reacted more forcefully to US policy. But they haven't. No one dares to give the US president a piece of their mind, not even in a polite conversation. Ordinary Arabs are aware of that. Ordinary Muslims simply feel insulted, for their officials are too timid to take a firm stand. The dominant impression among the Arabs is that the roadmap gave Israel a chance to carve off more Arab land, build a separating wall, kill dozens of Palestinian leaders, and humiliate the Arabs and Palestinians. The roadmap inflicted on the Palestinians all sorts of grief, but is not about to restore to them any of their rights. The roadmap, to cite Israel's former Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, is a disaster, just as were the Oslo accords. Neither the roadmap nor the Oslo accords have a clear ending or a specific vision of the future Palestinian state, but somehow they enticed Palestinian leaders down a road that will only deprive them of any residual self-respect. In view of Israel's repeated attempts to undermine the good intentions -- if there were any -- embedded in the roadmap initiative; in view of the success of the US and Israeli policies in sowing divisions in Palestinian ranks; and in view of the occupation of Iraq with all the lies and half-truths it implied, I do not think the Palestinian people are still hoping for a just peace to materialise through the efforts of the US neo-con government. It is indeed puzzling how the neo-cons spare no effort to provoke Arab officials and public, then bear the costs and effort to send a large delegation to tour the Arab world, asking "why do they hate us?". Few in the Arab and Muslim worlds, indeed in the world, hate the American people, or state, or values. And those who do hate the US don't feel that way all the time. What the neo-cons would have the American public believe is that entire nations hate the US and its people. This intentional misrepresentation is aimed at creating tensions to justify new schemes for imperial expansion, and to mobilise the American people behind the goals of the extreme right. The discussions that took place between the visiting delegation and Arab interlocutors were quite amazing. But what I found particularly galling was that the US delegation asked the Arabs to refrain from broaching political matters and focus on "other" matters that generate hatred to the US in this region. * The writer is director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
