A New Ally: Eli Lake on how Jordanian public opinion is turning in America’s favor
Harold's List
The New York Sun
Since the attacks of September 11, our country has been obsessed with a silly question: “Why do they hate us?” By “they,” the questioner usually means the Arabs or the Muslims. And the answer is invariably, experts tell us, because of the president’s war policy. Millions of taxpayer dollars and hours have been spent trying to solve this riddle premised on a strategic error.
The question we should have been asking is “why don’t they hate them?” In this case, the “them”is Al Qaeda,and the “they”is everyone who fears Allah. Until recently, the fact that Osama bin Laden would often rank higher than most world leaders in opinion polls in Arab countries is more worrying than whether Egyptians or Saudis think President Bush should be tougher on Prime Minister Sharon.
The significance of triple bombings of November 9 in Amman is that they may emerge as the event that starts the tide turning in civilization’s favor. An opinion poll conducted by elGhad newspaper in Jordan on Saturday provides a glimpse of the story. When the Hashemite Kingdom’s subjects were asked, “In your opinion what is the primary motivation behind last Wednesday’s attacks?” the response was extraordinary: 0.9% of those surveyed said the attacks were in the interest of the “Arab cause,” whereas nearly everyone else said it was either to “target Jordan” or “kill innocent people.”
When asked, “What is your opinion of al-Qaeda now?” 78.2% of the respondents chose “very negative,” while 12.8% chose “ somewhat negative.” Only 5.4% of those asked answered very or somewhat positive.When asked whether “al-Qaeda’s practices are in accordance with Islam?” a full 86.4% of Jordanians believe the answer is an unqualified no, with another 7.4% saying “no to a certain extent.”
These numbers disclose the magnitude of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s error in attacking three downtown hotels in Amman last Wednesday. Many Jordanians, and one would imagine numerous Arabs, are asking how someone can send a husband and wife wearing bombs to a wedding.This time the master terrorist struck Arab Sunni Muslims, not Turks, Shiites, Jews or Americans.As I reported on Monday, even the Imam of Mr. Zarqawi’s childhood mosque is calling Mr. Zarqawi an unbeliever.
One way to understand the ripples caused by those suicide bombs last week is that the Arab world is beginning to find the resolve to fight for the future of Islam. Al Qaeda has proven to almost an entire nation that it is willing to kill the people Al Qaeda claims to be defending. The best public diplomacy on heaven and earth could never spawn the contempt for Al Qaeda generated by their attacks of November 9.
Over the weekend in Cairo, the Arab League, an institution which to date has done next to nothing for the representative government in Iraq fighting on the front lines against nihilistic terror, will host the country’s real politicians in a sign it is willing to come to terms with a democracy in the heart of the region. This month, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the organization that spawned the gene of modern Islamic fundamentalism in the 1920s, has staged sit ins and peaceful protests in districts where they believe their candidates were cheated out of their rightful electoral wins.
But just as the Arab world may be finding the spine to fight the terrorists, America is losing its nerve. Today, even Republicans in the Senate are endorsing a soft version of the exit strategy from Iraq. The press is obsessed with irrelevant pedantry about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Democrats are more interested in whether Mr. Bush expressed every caveat of the intelligence community in his pre-war speeches than whether or not Sunni Arabs will participate in next month’s parliamentary elections.
The American capital has tied itself in knots over the detention and interrogation practices of the military. And while it is important that our democracy correct the gruesome excesses and cases of torture now coming to light, it would be a tragedy were this to prove an excuse for moral equivalency or neutralism.
This self-flagellation stems in part from an inquiry into the motivations and feelings of our enemies. But it is a fool’s errand to assume that those who recruit their members with videos of beheadings can be appeased or understood. This quest for root causes is at best a distraction and at worst a retreat. The Jordanians have just been mugged by reality, and in our current war we may have just won an ally who hitherto hated us.
elake@nysun.com
The New York Sun
Since the attacks of September 11, our country has been obsessed with a silly question: “Why do they hate us?” By “they,” the questioner usually means the Arabs or the Muslims. And the answer is invariably, experts tell us, because of the president’s war policy. Millions of taxpayer dollars and hours have been spent trying to solve this riddle premised on a strategic error.
The question we should have been asking is “why don’t they hate them?” In this case, the “them”is Al Qaeda,and the “they”is everyone who fears Allah. Until recently, the fact that Osama bin Laden would often rank higher than most world leaders in opinion polls in Arab countries is more worrying than whether Egyptians or Saudis think President Bush should be tougher on Prime Minister Sharon.
The significance of triple bombings of November 9 in Amman is that they may emerge as the event that starts the tide turning in civilization’s favor. An opinion poll conducted by elGhad newspaper in Jordan on Saturday provides a glimpse of the story. When the Hashemite Kingdom’s subjects were asked, “In your opinion what is the primary motivation behind last Wednesday’s attacks?” the response was extraordinary: 0.9% of those surveyed said the attacks were in the interest of the “Arab cause,” whereas nearly everyone else said it was either to “target Jordan” or “kill innocent people.”
When asked, “What is your opinion of al-Qaeda now?” 78.2% of the respondents chose “very negative,” while 12.8% chose “ somewhat negative.” Only 5.4% of those asked answered very or somewhat positive.When asked whether “al-Qaeda’s practices are in accordance with Islam?” a full 86.4% of Jordanians believe the answer is an unqualified no, with another 7.4% saying “no to a certain extent.”
These numbers disclose the magnitude of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s error in attacking three downtown hotels in Amman last Wednesday. Many Jordanians, and one would imagine numerous Arabs, are asking how someone can send a husband and wife wearing bombs to a wedding.This time the master terrorist struck Arab Sunni Muslims, not Turks, Shiites, Jews or Americans.As I reported on Monday, even the Imam of Mr. Zarqawi’s childhood mosque is calling Mr. Zarqawi an unbeliever.
One way to understand the ripples caused by those suicide bombs last week is that the Arab world is beginning to find the resolve to fight for the future of Islam. Al Qaeda has proven to almost an entire nation that it is willing to kill the people Al Qaeda claims to be defending. The best public diplomacy on heaven and earth could never spawn the contempt for Al Qaeda generated by their attacks of November 9.
Over the weekend in Cairo, the Arab League, an institution which to date has done next to nothing for the representative government in Iraq fighting on the front lines against nihilistic terror, will host the country’s real politicians in a sign it is willing to come to terms with a democracy in the heart of the region. This month, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the organization that spawned the gene of modern Islamic fundamentalism in the 1920s, has staged sit ins and peaceful protests in districts where they believe their candidates were cheated out of their rightful electoral wins.
But just as the Arab world may be finding the spine to fight the terrorists, America is losing its nerve. Today, even Republicans in the Senate are endorsing a soft version of the exit strategy from Iraq. The press is obsessed with irrelevant pedantry about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Democrats are more interested in whether Mr. Bush expressed every caveat of the intelligence community in his pre-war speeches than whether or not Sunni Arabs will participate in next month’s parliamentary elections.
The American capital has tied itself in knots over the detention and interrogation practices of the military. And while it is important that our democracy correct the gruesome excesses and cases of torture now coming to light, it would be a tragedy were this to prove an excuse for moral equivalency or neutralism.
This self-flagellation stems in part from an inquiry into the motivations and feelings of our enemies. But it is a fool’s errand to assume that those who recruit their members with videos of beheadings can be appeased or understood. This quest for root causes is at best a distraction and at worst a retreat. The Jordanians have just been mugged by reality, and in our current war we may have just won an ally who hitherto hated us.
elake@nysun.com
posted by Marko at 11/17/2005 12:30:00 PM
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