Support for suicide bombers?
An Europen reader pointed me to this web site: http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=248
You can read the related comment under "Antisemitism" post on this blog.
I am having hard time interpreting these numbers. I will share with you thie graph now and I will spend some time thinking about it.
posted by Tarik @ 1:34 PM
4 Comments:
I'd be excited to hear some thoughts on the topic. Also, I'd be excited to hear whether you think the overwhelmingly anti-Jewish sentiment in Muslim countries that the same poll points out (only 8% of Moroccans for example having "favorable" or "somewhat favorable" views of Jews) is indeed the reflection of the Israel-Palestine conflict. If yes, then I don't see much difference between the Muslim world having negative feelings towards *all* Jews based on the actions of Israeli government, and non-Muslim people having negative feelings towards *all* Muslims based on the actions of extremist terrorist groups. And by the way, according to the same poll, the percentage of people in those nine Western countries surveyed having "favorable" or "somewhat favorable" views of Muslims was in every case at least 40% (the lowest 40% belonging to, no great surprise, Germany).
I am not sure about the accuracy of this survey. But I still don't understand what's Morocco doing in this list.
Morocco is known as a country of tolerance towards the jewish community, which is one of the most important minorities. Even if the palestinian problem has raised suspicions towards jews, it still doesn't reach the proportions of your reference.
I have studied with many jews (many of my friends are) in my school and I never had the feeling they were discriminated...
Furthermore, jews are very present in our economy and politics.
For example, the royal advisor (Andre Azoulay), one of the most powerful men in the country is jewish.
The author of the above post may very well be right, and the survey was somehow biased.
However, I am not particularly convinced by personal anecdotes. For example, looking at the Americans I study and work with here in Seattle, I would never think anyone in the US would even consider supporting Bush. And furthermore, having power (often seems to be equal to having money) and being viewed favorably by others are in my opinion two different things.
Yes, indeed, it's true: many arabs don't like jews because of the palestinian problems. Even if there's a big confusion between jewish religion and sionnism, people don't care: they just mix them and enjoy this amalgam. Just like most of western people mix arabs and muslims.
What about terrorism? Well, first we should define what is terrorism. If Palestine is defending itself with stones, secret armadas and kamikaze and not with an "official army", the reasons are just the circumstances, the lack of financial/logistic support. Terrorist? Just as Hitler called the french resistance or the western colonies depreciated the local riots (I forgot what's the war of Irak about...).
Now does this affect the image
"modern civilized western world" has about arabs? Yes, for sure, because medias don't contribute to explain this people are a minorities (on the other side, arab medias do not educate people about the western civilization either). People should compare the focuse of some news (like the recent caricatures) given by CNN and Al Jazeera for example, to understand that we are radicaly informed differently, it's quite funny sometimes.
There's an obvious recoprocical mutual fear (the reference of Huttington was very well chosen in the previous post). And it's not easy to bridge the cultural gap between the 2 sides. But, arabs are not in Europe/America to educate their people, well at least I am not... I'd rather improve, in a not-so-far future, the image of western world in my country and educate people understand it:
-my voice will be much more valued and respected this way.
-I frankly prefer to educate people from my country.
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