Al-Ahram Weekly | Heritage | Israeli roots of anti-Americanism

		12 - 18 September 2002 Issue No. 603 Heritage	Current issue Previous issue Site map
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Israeli roots of anti-Americanism
The sources of growing anti-Americanism in the Arab world are not hard to find. Ayman El-Amir* comments on last week's 'why they hate us?' conference in Washington

Last week, on 5 and 6 September, the US State Department organised a low- key conference of high-profile foreign- policy experts, researchers and seasoned diplomats to revisit the much-debated question of "why they hate us". While the conference was timed close to the first anniversary of 11 September, when the State Department had to make a contribution, the agenda was flexible enough to stretch the discussion beyond the immediate impact of 9/11. It sought to define the root-causes of what it believes to be a rising tide of global anti- Americanism, and how to confront it.
The conference and its timing, however, raise some interesting questions. First, why is the soul-searching issue that was so agonisingly debated in the aftermath of 11 September being rehashed? Secondly, in what way is it related, if at all, to the sizzling debate over the invasion of Iraq, which is now the primary preoccupation of Washington? For one thing, it is doubtful that the debate at the State Department's conference has broken any new ground or offered new answers to America's problems. 11 September did not occur because the world hated America. It occurred because a maverick group, with a terrorist ideology, wanted to retaliate against the US for a number of grievances, foremost among them the US's unabashed support of Israel's war of genocide against the Defenceless Palestinian people. The actions of this group were unjustifiable and outright criminal. They have wronged the people of America. But so has the United States government wronged other peoples of the world, and the list of peoples thus wronged is a long one.
In his book Holy War Inc., CNN news correspondent Peter Bergen, who was one of the first reporters to interview Osama Bin Laden, wrote "in all the tens of thousands of words that Bin Laden has uttered on the public record there are some significant omissions: he does not rail against the pernicious effects of Hollywood movies, or against Madonna's midriff, or against the pornography protected by the US Constitution. Nor does he inveigh against the drug or alcohol culture of the West, or its tolerance for homosexuals... What he condemns the United States for is simple: its policies in the Middle East. Those are, to recap briefly: the continued US military presence in Arabia; US support for Israel; its continued bombing of Iraq; and its support for regimes that Bin Laden regards as apostates from Islam."
This is the case simply put by someone who is not a supporter of Bin Laden.
To say that the world harbours hatred or feelings of anti-Americanism is naïve. In fact, the opposite is true. There is no better proof of that than the hundreds of thousands of immigrants, legal or illegal, who flood into the United States every year. The long queues of entry-visa seekers outside American embassies in most countries of the developing world are another example. Like it or not, they are all seeking to be part of the "American dream", which is still a reality, albeit with a pinch of salt. For hundreds of millions of people who have nothing to look forward to in their national homelands except poverty, slim chances for education, denial of basic human rights, political oppression and a gloomy economic future, America is still " a land of opportunity".
The American people also have a rich experience that they can offer to the rest of the world. Moreover, the US has set for most people of the world the way of life by which they now live: the American way of life. It has introduced us to television, blue jeans, pop music, fast food, corporate business practices, soap operas, Coke (the drinkable stuff) and the pantyhose. But it has also been responsible for permeating our social lives with a culture of violence. We have yet to see one country in the developing world where the US has inculcated, promoted or insisted upon the ideals of democracy, justice and free speech that it boasts of. Former US President Harry S Truman was once quoted as saying "this country was built on money, not morals." Nothing could be truer of our modern world.
The tragic events of 9/ 11 will soon become a fading memory, after the US media is done with the first anniversary commemoration. Last month, a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found an equal number of Americans concerned with strengthening the economy as with the war on terrorism.
Even so, the State Department's conference is not without its merits, particularly at this time of frenzied tug-of-war about whether or not to attack Iraq. It was probably designed to provide a counterweight to the heavy pressure exercised on President George W Bush by what Washington circles call the "chickenhawks" of the Department of Defence -- those who urge war but have themselves never fought in one -- to launch a preemptive strike. These include Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and Defence Policy Board Chairman Richard Perle (President Bush himself served in the Air National Guard in Houston during the Vietnam War).
Voices most urging caution on Iraq, on the other hand, are people who have known war at first hand, including General Anthony Zinni, Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft and Norman Schwarzkopf. They are joined by a very important Republican Party heavyweight: James Baker III, the architect of the global coalition that made the first war on Iraq in 1991 possible. So the State Department is probably sounding a warning that war against Iraq would strengthen the case for anti-Americanism.
There is little doubt that Israel is the driving force behind the "neo- conservatives" of the Department of Defence and their allies in Congress who are urging the "strike Iraq now" policy. Israel has been the primary beneficiary of the violence that has engulfed the Middle East since the notorious Ariel Sharon became Israeli prime minister. It has successfully persuaded the Bush Administration, particularly after 9/11, that its genocidal war against the Palestinians is a natural corollary to the global war against terrorism. It is now urging a debilitating military strike to eliminate "the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction", which President Bush echoes in every other statement.
No senior administration official in Washington, from President Bush down, or politician in Congress, has had the moral courage to pose a question about Israel's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and what threat this represents for stability in the Middle East. Few are willing to recall the warning of General Lee Butler, head of President Bill Clinton's Strategic Command in the early 1990s, that "it is dangerous in the extreme that in the cauldron of animosities we call the Middle East, one nation has armed itself, ostensibly, with stockpiles of nuclear weapons, perhaps numbering in the hundreds, and that inspires other nations to do so." The reference, of course, was to Israel.
Israel, with the support of the United States, wants to monopolise the possession of weapons of mass destruction to impose its hegemony on the region, from Afghanistan to Morocco and from Iran to Sudan. If Iraq is eliminated as a potential political and military power, Iran will be next, and Israel is working on that too. Israeli aircraft based in Turkey are reportedly flying reconnaissance missions along the borders of Iran as part of a US-Israel-Turkey policy of intimidating that country. Inordinate concern has been raised about Iran's weapons-development programme, including its recently tested missile systems and the arms deals it has concluded with Russia. With Iraq under siege, Iran remains the last best hope to counterbalance Israel's hegemony and its threat of weapons of mass destruction.
With the Israeli-driven US case for the destruction of Iraq in the balance, Washington remains a divided house. The Bush Administration is facing a lukewarm Congress, preoccupied with the November elections, a wavering public and little enthusiasm among its allies. But Israel is not giving up.
Israel's rabid ambition of becoming the super-power of the Middle East by destroying Iraq, containing Iran, subjugating the Palestinians and intimidating Arab countries plays against American interests in the region way beyond Israeli-American control. The only hope is for President Bush to resist rushing into a misadventure in Iraq at the behest of Israel and its chickenhawk supporters in Washington. His address before the United Nations General Assembly this week will seek to sound out the international community on a unilateral act of war. He will be brandishing a sabre in a house that was specifically created to ban them. He may not find the kind of welcome he wishes for.
* The writer is former correspondent for Al-Ahram in Washington DC. He also served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York.

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