Do "the People" in Arab Countries Really Want Peace?
We are often told that, whatever tyrants and terrorist leaders may want, "the people" of the Arab countries really want peace with Israel. Michael I. Krause, in "What Do Muslim Nations Think About Terrorists," American Thinker (http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/what_do_muslim_nations_think_a.html) reports some evidence that this may not be the case, referencing a study by the Pew Global Attitudes Project ("Mixed Views of Hamas and Hezbollah in Largely Muslim Nations," http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=268):
The first question reported in the summary was simple. It asked the question "Favorable/Unfavorable" regarding Hamas and Hezbollah of people from Jordan, Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon and Turkey. One interesting aspect of this was the positive spin the Pew authors tried to put on some fairly depressing results -- starting with the assumption that support for Fateh (the PLO group currently governing the West Bank) would not count as support for a Terrorist organization and hence was not worth examining.
This does mean that anyone answering "favorable" was sympathetic to one or another group whose explicitly declared aims include the destruction of the state of Israel and whose leaders have also stated that they wish to kill all Jews, everywhere in the world (thus implicitly committing themselves to a policy of war against the entire West, since any attempt at such an action would of course be an intolerable act of war against any Power which possessed any signficant Jewish minority. This makes it sort of hard to rationalize it away as an "understandable sentiment."
As Krause pointed out, the "good news" came from Turkey, where only 5% of the populace has a favorable opinion of Hamas and 3% of Hezbollah, compared to 69% unfavorable of Hamas and 73% of Hezbollah. This puts actual support for the anti-Israeli Terrorist organizations well into the "radical fringe" category, and this despite Turkey's current slow descent into theocracy.
The news from elsewhere is nowhere near as good. In "moderate" Jordan, a major beneficiary of US aid, there are 36% pro and 56% anti Hamas, and 45% pro and 51% anti Hezbollah. This is a majority against the Terrorists, but a very slim majority: given any division or other weakness in the anti side, one could easily see a pro-Terrorist government coming to power. As Jordan is a monarchy, all it would really take would be a palace coup, or an assassination followed the succession of an heir with different opinions.
In Egypt, a country whose "moderation" seems largely by decree from America to justify American support for Egypt (and pride in the now obviously disastrous Camp David peace accord brokered by Jimmy Carter back in 1978), the population is 44% anti- and 52% pro-Hamas, and 57% anti- and 43% pro-Hezbollah. This is an actual (small) majority in favor of the group which has wrecked the Sinai and fired high explosive rockets at Israeli citizens, and an uncomfortably-small majority against Hezbollah (also note the extreme polarization: very few people can have expressed "no opinion" on the latter question. Here, it's obvious that only the (marginally) greater sanity of the dictator Mubarak is preserving the peace, since if Egypt materially supported Hamas, an Egyptian-Israeli war would probably become unavoidable.
In the Palestinian territories, we have 52% anti- and 44% pro-Hamas, and 36% anti- and 61% pro-Hezbollah. Of course the actual Palestinian regime, Fateh, is a Terrorist organization devoted to Israel's destruction. The very high pro-Hezbollah levels may derive from the fact that Israel fought the war against Hezbollah less well than she did the war against Hamas -- a reminder that people in this part of the world like to "back a strong horse" above all else. The strong support for Hezbollah is an obvious obstacle to peace, since Hezbollah is directly-backed by (some would say merely an arm of) the Iranian-Syrian Axis.
In Lebanon, interestingly, we see 68% anti- to 30% pro-Hamas, and 64% anti- to 35% pro-Hezbollah. This is significant because it shows the depth of Lebanese resentment against both Syrians and Palestinians, who pretty much conquered and wrecked their country in the 1970's and 1980's. Unfortunately, there is very little effective being done to stop the Syrians from retaking Lebanon, a process currently underway using Hezbollah as cat's paws -- it does suggest that when we get a real President again in 2013, we might profitably arm the anti-Hezbollah Lebanese.
The second question was of the degree of support for various Muslim leaders in various Muslim countries. The most surprising result, in my opinion, is the amazingly high support Ahmadinejad has (43%) in Indonesia -- a country normally considered fairly moderate. His 45% support among Palestinians I do not consider surprising -- the Palestinians have historically shown an unerring aptitude for choosing precisely the wrong allies for their own interests, at every point in history since 1939, when they decided to go ga-ga over Hitler.
The third question was of confidence in Osama bin Laden, which has (note) strongly declined in recent years, as Al Qaeda has suffered defeat after defeat -- remember "back a strong horse." Here again, the Palestinians show their folly, with 51% supporting him.
Stop and mull that over. 51% of the Palestinians support the man who launched an unprovoked attack on America and killed some 3000 Americans just nine years ago. Or, alternately, are so deluded about reality that they actually don't believe that he did it. In other words, they are either evil or stupid.
Is there any reason why we should continue to diplomatically or financially aid the Palestinians?
The fourth question was whether Sunni-Shia tensions were limited to Iraq or were a more general problem. Unsurprisingly, the majority of Muslims believed that it was a more general problem. Interestingly, the big dissenters here were in Indonesia, where 25% thought it was not a more general problem and only 47% thought "limited to Iraq," implying that Indonesians really don't think too hard about the issue (since by implication about a third of Indonesian respondents were "undecided.")
Krauss succinctly sums up the implications:
Recent declarations by Secretary of State Clinton seem to acknowledge, at long last, the existential threat posed by Iran to world peace and to American security. But until high-level diplomats such as Ms. Clinton and George Mitchell acknowledge that the populations of "friendly" Arab nations are in fact inimical to peace, they will continue to place pressure in all the wrong places.
Precisely. It is the more-enlightened and well-educated Arab leadership -- thugs and dictators though they are -- who understand enough about the world and have strong enough reality principles to grasp why the Iranians are an existential threat to their countries, and why war with Israel would be bad. As far as the Arab peoples are concerned, war with Israel is desirable, and Iran is significant primarily as an ally.
All the more reason to support Israel, and to support Arab leaderships only insofar as they are willing to suppress those who would make war against her.
The first question reported in the summary was simple. It asked the question "Favorable/Unfavorable" regarding Hamas and Hezbollah of people from Jordan, Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon and Turkey. One interesting aspect of this was the positive spin the Pew authors tried to put on some fairly depressing results -- starting with the assumption that support for Fateh (the PLO group currently governing the West Bank) would not count as support for a Terrorist organization and hence was not worth examining.
This does mean that anyone answering "favorable" was sympathetic to one or another group whose explicitly declared aims include the destruction of the state of Israel and whose leaders have also stated that they wish to kill all Jews, everywhere in the world (thus implicitly committing themselves to a policy of war against the entire West, since any attempt at such an action would of course be an intolerable act of war against any Power which possessed any signficant Jewish minority. This makes it sort of hard to rationalize it away as an "understandable sentiment."
As Krause pointed out, the "good news" came from Turkey, where only 5% of the populace has a favorable opinion of Hamas and 3% of Hezbollah, compared to 69% unfavorable of Hamas and 73% of Hezbollah. This puts actual support for the anti-Israeli Terrorist organizations well into the "radical fringe" category, and this despite Turkey's current slow descent into theocracy.
The news from elsewhere is nowhere near as good. In "moderate" Jordan, a major beneficiary of US aid, there are 36% pro and 56% anti Hamas, and 45% pro and 51% anti Hezbollah. This is a majority against the Terrorists, but a very slim majority: given any division or other weakness in the anti side, one could easily see a pro-Terrorist government coming to power. As Jordan is a monarchy, all it would really take would be a palace coup, or an assassination followed the succession of an heir with different opinions.
In Egypt, a country whose "moderation" seems largely by decree from America to justify American support for Egypt (and pride in the now obviously disastrous Camp David peace accord brokered by Jimmy Carter back in 1978), the population is 44% anti- and 52% pro-Hamas, and 57% anti- and 43% pro-Hezbollah. This is an actual (small) majority in favor of the group which has wrecked the Sinai and fired high explosive rockets at Israeli citizens, and an uncomfortably-small majority against Hezbollah (also note the extreme polarization: very few people can have expressed "no opinion" on the latter question. Here, it's obvious that only the (marginally) greater sanity of the dictator Mubarak is preserving the peace, since if Egypt materially supported Hamas, an Egyptian-Israeli war would probably become unavoidable.
In the Palestinian territories, we have 52% anti- and 44% pro-Hamas, and 36% anti- and 61% pro-Hezbollah. Of course the actual Palestinian regime, Fateh, is a Terrorist organization devoted to Israel's destruction. The very high pro-Hezbollah levels may derive from the fact that Israel fought the war against Hezbollah less well than she did the war against Hamas -- a reminder that people in this part of the world like to "back a strong horse" above all else. The strong support for Hezbollah is an obvious obstacle to peace, since Hezbollah is directly-backed by (some would say merely an arm of) the Iranian-Syrian Axis.
In Lebanon, interestingly, we see 68% anti- to 30% pro-Hamas, and 64% anti- to 35% pro-Hezbollah. This is significant because it shows the depth of Lebanese resentment against both Syrians and Palestinians, who pretty much conquered and wrecked their country in the 1970's and 1980's. Unfortunately, there is very little effective being done to stop the Syrians from retaking Lebanon, a process currently underway using Hezbollah as cat's paws -- it does suggest that when we get a real President again in 2013, we might profitably arm the anti-Hezbollah Lebanese.
The second question was of the degree of support for various Muslim leaders in various Muslim countries. The most surprising result, in my opinion, is the amazingly high support Ahmadinejad has (43%) in Indonesia -- a country normally considered fairly moderate. His 45% support among Palestinians I do not consider surprising -- the Palestinians have historically shown an unerring aptitude for choosing precisely the wrong allies for their own interests, at every point in history since 1939, when they decided to go ga-ga over Hitler.
The third question was of confidence in Osama bin Laden, which has (note) strongly declined in recent years, as Al Qaeda has suffered defeat after defeat -- remember "back a strong horse." Here again, the Palestinians show their folly, with 51% supporting him.
Stop and mull that over. 51% of the Palestinians support the man who launched an unprovoked attack on America and killed some 3000 Americans just nine years ago. Or, alternately, are so deluded about reality that they actually don't believe that he did it. In other words, they are either evil or stupid.
Is there any reason why we should continue to diplomatically or financially aid the Palestinians?
The fourth question was whether Sunni-Shia tensions were limited to Iraq or were a more general problem. Unsurprisingly, the majority of Muslims believed that it was a more general problem. Interestingly, the big dissenters here were in Indonesia, where 25% thought it was not a more general problem and only 47% thought "limited to Iraq," implying that Indonesians really don't think too hard about the issue (since by implication about a third of Indonesian respondents were "undecided.")
Krauss succinctly sums up the implications:
Recent declarations by Secretary of State Clinton seem to acknowledge, at long last, the existential threat posed by Iran to world peace and to American security. But until high-level diplomats such as Ms. Clinton and George Mitchell acknowledge that the populations of "friendly" Arab nations are in fact inimical to peace, they will continue to place pressure in all the wrong places.
Precisely. It is the more-enlightened and well-educated Arab leadership -- thugs and dictators though they are -- who understand enough about the world and have strong enough reality principles to grasp why the Iranians are an existential threat to their countries, and why war with Israel would be bad. As far as the Arab peoples are concerned, war with Israel is desirable, and Iran is significant primarily as an ally.
All the more reason to support Israel, and to support Arab leaderships only insofar as they are willing to suppress those who would make war against her.