A comprehensive new poll on Arab Public Opinion was released today, and the results contradict many of the progressive media’s strongly held beliefs about issues such as anti-Americanism, Arab support for radical leaders, and their attitudes towards Jews. So it is likely that the Guardian will ignore it completely.
The 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll was conducted June 29th to July 20th in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, by the University of Maryland, in conjunction with Zogby International. Among the findings, as you’ll see in below graphics, were that support for President Obama, and America more broadly, has decreased to the point where the Arab views aren’t much different from what they were under President Bush.
On the question of which nations pose the greatest threats to them, it seems like President Obama’s much credited speech to the Arab world, in Cairo, and the quite dramatic change in U.S. policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict he initiated, hasn’t won him much praise. These results, especially, would suggest that (again, contradicting progressive conventional wisdom on the subject) anti-Americanism is not a reflection of U.S. foreign policy, or its support for Israel.
On which Palestinian leaders they admire the most, Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal leads the pack:
On which world leaders, other than their own, they admire the most, the top three are Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinajad.
One of the more disturbing results pertained to Arab views on The Holocaust. Specifically, when asked how they feel when they see a movie or program about the Jewish Holocaust, only 3% responded that they “Empathize with the Jews who suffered under the Holocaust.”
