Why we hate the United States, and why we need it, Riad Tabbarah

Opinion, July 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Why we hate the United States, and why we need it

Riad Tabbarah

The Daily Star, 7/30/03

Americans were disturbed, especially after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, by the realization that most people in the world looked at the United States with resentment. The question in America, most recently after the Iraq war, became: “Why does everybody hate us?”
Americans have tended to provide simple and dismissive answers to the question. Originally, the answer was that people in other countries, particularly those in the Third World, were jealous and hated the US because it was rich and they were poor, and because it was democratic and their countries were not. While there may be truth to this allegation, jealousy can work both ways some people actually admire the US because of its wealth and their perception that it is democratic.
American columnist Thomas Friedman provided a slightly less simplistic answer: The people of the world hate the US because it touches their lives not only economically and culturally, but also militarily (the so-called Godzilla factor), without giving them a say in the matter. Yes, that is certainly a reason, but the answer is more complex. Different people hate the US for different reasons, and one cannot explain this universal phenomenon by a single factor.
Arabs and Muslims hate the US largely because of its double standards in dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict. For example, the US waged war against Iraq because of its alleged ownership of weapons of mass destruction which it did not yet find after two months of searching and it is threatening Syria and Iran with the same fate.
Meanwhile, Israel possesses a large number of atomic weapons, in addition to other nonconventional weapons, and refuses to even allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect its production facility at Dimona.
The US also sought to punish Iraq for failing to comply with UN Security Council resolutions. Yet Israel has rejected more UN resolutions than any other United Nations member state. The US has vetoed more than 30 Security Council resolutions to protect Israel from censure. Israel receives more private and public financial assistance from the US than the rest of the world combined, many times more than the entire African continent, which is being ravaged by AIDS.
And then there is Guantanamo Bay, the Patriot Act and racial profiling, whereby thousands of Arabs and Muslims in the US have been imprisoned without the right to a lawyer and for long periods of time without trial, depriving them of the most basic human rights. Even the US Justice Department’s inspector-general has condemned these practices, but Attorney General John Ashcroft reacted by requesting broader powers from Congress.
Many in the developing world hate the US because they feel militarily threatened by it. US President George W. Bush’s new doctrine advocating pre-emptive strikes has frightened even America’s friends. A recent Pew opinion survey showed that a majority in practically all Third World countries surveyed was worried about a potential American military threat: some 74 percent in Indonesia, 71 percent in allied Turkey, 56 percent in friendly Jordan and 53 percent in very friendly Kuwait. Call this Friedman’s Godzilla factor.
The high-handed way the Bush administration handled the Iraq debate made many Europeans join the ranks of US haters. The new Bush doctrine, as elaborated by the neo-conservatives who dominate American foreign policy, advocates a Pax Americana that excludes other countries from major decision-making on major world matters. Any country that threatens the dominance of the US is to be cut down to size. People in Old Europe, Russia, China, as well as in New Europe and in other states cannot accept this hegemony, nor that their international business interests are being placed at the mercy of the US administration, as is already happening in Iraq.
Most people in the world believe in the goals of the UN and are sad to see its authority diminished. They deeply resent actions by the Bush administration that flaunt international decisions and bypass multilateral institutions. Washington’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocols, its insistence on exempting its citizens from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, its resumption of development of nuclear weapons while insisting on ridding the rest of the world of such weapons, have only increased the resentment people feel toward it. A recent article by a leading neoconservative adviser to the Pentagon, Richard Perle, under the title, Thank God for the Death of the UN, hardly helped matters.
So people hate the US for different reasons, and some hate it for more than one reason. They hate American policies, not Americans, although this may change if these policies persist. To remedy this situation, the Americans are establishing radio and television stations in the Middle East to broadcast propaganda with rock-and-roll music. This reflects an extremely naive approach.
What is needed is a change in policy. Replace the double standards in dealing with the Middle East by an even-handed policy that befits an impartial arbiter. Re-establish habeas corpus with regard to Arabs and Muslims in the US. Use American power to help find fair solutions to world problems, revoke the pre-emption doctrine and project a more sober image towards the rest of the world. Undertake consultation with other major players on major issues affecting them and, above all, return to the UN fold and work toward improving it rather than trying to kill it and rejoicing at its death.

Riad Tabbarah is director of the Center for Development Studies and Projects in Beirut. He was Lebanon’s ambassador to the United States. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).