Causes of Anti-Americanism in the Middle East

This paper discusses the causes of anti-Americanism in the Middle East, including cultural differences, extremist behavior, and America's involvement in domestic affairs. It also suggests possible solutions to eliminate hatred and foster peace.

Anti-Americanism 1
WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF ANTI-AMERICANISM IN THE MIDDLE EAST? DISCUSS.
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What are the causes of anti-Americanism in the Middle East? Discuss.
1. Introduction
America, being a country that spurs admiration globally when it comes to its economy,
power and politics, also inspires greed, jealousy and frustration from other super power countries
who would want to run the world economy as it does. According to Lacorne (2010, p. 18), anti-
Americanism can be defined as the precarious and total dissimilarity with what Americans do, as
well as their cultural, economic and political belief system. This can be seen as a total
incongruity of the thoughts, civilization, people and policies that the United States comes up
with. The rejection of such policies and the adverse inclination of other nations against the
United States have no concrete base. In fact, anti-Americanism has no single clear cut definition,
but is rather an opinionated and misguided belief about America (Tarifa, 2010, p. 51). The
objective of this paper is to, thus, discuss the causes of anti-Americanism in the Middle East.
This subsequently brings out the parallel effect that anti-Americanism would bring on the two
nations, hence it similarly necessitates a brief discussion on the history of ant-Americanism.
2. A Brief History of Anti-Americanism
By taking a retrospective approach on the events preceding the anti-Americanism, which
was at the onset of September 2011, a coordinated attack on the United States soil left many dead
and hundreds injured. The group responsible were believed to be terrorists from the Arab
nations. This was established as a retaliatory attack owing to the presence of the American
soldiers in the Middle East, America’s support for Israeli -- nation that is at war with other Arab
nations --, and the Persian Gulf war that aided president Bush’s attempts to force Iraq out of
Kuwait. The Cold War, which led to the Soviet Union’s collapse amid a super-power agreement
between the United States and the Soviet Union, also further fuelled anti-Americanism since its

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purpose was to control the global economy, thereby bringing out the capitalistic nature of the
American people. It was through these events that the Middle East and the European Union
witnessed America’s global economic manipulation, and their controlling nature of the American
society (Dimant, et al., 2017, p. 5).
Additionally, the start and duration of the World War II witnessed the springing up of
leftist parties consisting of people that bore different political and economic views at the time, all
of whom initiated the new era of anti-Americanism. Since, at that time, America was
encroaching on every frontier including markets and globalization industries around the world,
their activities stirred hatred in other countries in Europe and the Middle East which were
lagging behind. This new era of hatred and predisposed bias spread to other Islamic nations
which similarly began to hone negativity against America. All of the above were the genesis of
what has today become the focus of most of world’s economies against America. Ultimately,
despite America’s positive strides with regard to equality, heightened progress and civilization,
economic and political advancement, long-standing differences still believe these to be a form of
capitalism in the United States, and thereby worsening any preconceived prejudices from the
Middle East towards America (Dimant, et al., 2017, p. 3).
3. The Causes of ant-Americanism
The negative sentiments and ideologies from the Middle East towards America can be
attributed to two parallel reasons: the United States’ blame on the Middle East for their
misfortunes, and the Middle Eastern countries’ blame and biases towards the American culture.
3.1. Cultural Differences
According to Walt (2006, p. 47), the opposition that the United States faces is
unavoidable and it is due to the power concentration, or the values and culture that the country

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holds. Middle East countries believe that the negativity that spawns from American citizens is
mainly due to their culture and belief system. Typically, Muslims are strong believers of their
way of life, hence certain cultural systems posited by Americans, such as sexual involvement at
early ages, procreation out of wedlock, and divorce rates are highly frowned upon. Therefore, the
Middle East instinctively believe that the woes faced by the Americans are resultant of the
consequences brought about by their own cultural belief systems, especially since they are
parallel to and against the Muslim culture (Anan & Holly, 2012, p. 12).
3.2. Extremist Behavior
In addition, America being a highly admirable country overshadows other countries’
cultures. Therefore, several other countries tend to copy what Americans do (Levin, 2010, p. 19).
The Muslims in the East are opposed to such cultures of individualism, materialistic behavior,
violence and their level of democracy. The extremists from the Middle East countries take
advantage of these issues, and use them to proliferate violence and hate, and to radicalize their
citizens. Leaders of radicalized groups simply use religious fanaticism of mistrust, hostility and
violence to fuel their hatred towards the west (Levin, 2010, p. 63).
3.3. Middle East’s Blame on America
3.3.1. Poor Accountability by the Middle East
In the past decade the Middle East has always blamed other nations for their own
problems. For instance, during the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East blamed Turkey
for their oppressions. Likewise, prior to the September 2011 terrorist attacks, the Middle Eastern
leaders focused their hatred towards the British, and later the French before turning hatred
towards America. Similarly, leaders in the Middle East use the oppression, poor economic

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downturn of their countries, lack of democracy and equality in their countries to blame America
for not aiding in the development of their own countries (Lewis, 2008, p. 3).
3.3.2. Blame Caused by Religion-based Differences
There are two possible reasons for the Middle East to blame the U.S. for the hatred they
face: one is the fundamentalists, the Islam groups that provides all basic social amenities such as
temporary schools, medicine and temporary shelters and it is within this gatherings that they get
opportunities to preach of hatred towards the West. The second are the secularists who preach
the separation of the church and government and hence creating the incompatibility between the
West and Middle East. According to Barry Rubin (2014, p. 185), reconciliation between the
West and Middle East is not possible because the two are clashing over civilization, whose root
cause is religion. In his book, Zakaria (2011) writes that religious differences are far more
entrenched than political dogmas and regimes.
3.3.3. Blame due to America’s Influence on the World
When it comes to the flip side, America blaming the Middle East for their own troubles,
the scholars argue that it’s not about the values and culture that Muslims are opposed to, but it is
the power that the U.S. holds. Studies have shown that it’s not about the belief system, culture
and values that brings hatred from the Middle East but the foreign policies that America imposes.
Radical Muslims will use these policies for their own benefit to fuel hate while at the same time
wilting the support of the modernized Muslim.
3.3.4. America’s Involvement in Domestic Affairs
Some of the foreign policies that have been used against America are involvement in
native affairs, support for oppressive rules and the U.S. support for Israeli. Beginning with
involvement in native affairs, America has been highly involved in the domestic affairs of most

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countries in the Middle East with presence of military bases, air raids and the military occupying
some regions. The effect of such meddling is the increase in suicide terrorism which is in
response from the citizens and most especially the radicalized groups towards America and
sending messages of “stop interfering” with our local affairs. According to Huntington (2017, p.
613), the Gulf War in the early 90’s caused a transformation of one of the fundamentalist group,
the al-Qaeda, from supporting civilians with social amenities in their country of Saudi Arabia
into an extremist group. The reason behind this is because America was seen to be controlling
political affairs and their local natural resources and the American air strikes would lead to the
death of many blameless citizens.
3.4. Support for Oppressive Rules
According to Peter J. Katzenstein (2011, p. 123), the American government continues to
rally support of the autocratic leaders of the Middle Eastern countries in terms of economic aid
which is never used to develop the native countries economically. The U.S. then takes upon itself
to use the resources such as oil for their own benefit. The double standard nature of America’s
policy of supporting oppression and at the same time using the countries resources leads to more
hatred from its people. The civilians from the Middle Eastern countries argue that it’s not about
the hatred of the Americans towards their culture and their way of life but it’s the hypocritical
nature of the American leaders to continue supporting oppressive regimes that has led to the
criticism.
3.5. America’s Support for Israeli
Since its independence in 1947, Israeli has continued to enjoy unmarred support from
America in such a way that other Arab countries associate Israeli to America. According to a
survey conducted in 2003, respondents from Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia,

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indicated favoritism from the West when it came to military and economic aids of Israeli Vis a
Vis other Arab nations. When it came to the Arab Israeli war, America sided with Israeli and this
created a rift between other Arab countries and Israeli (Anan & Holly, 2012, p. 555).
4. Strengths and Weaknesses of Causes of anti- Americanism
The two main causes of anti-Americanism; the Middle East blaming America for their
troubles and America blaming Middle East for their continued oppression have their own
strengths and weaknesses. America and its leadership believes that they are a force to reckon
with and that being said the events following September 11th, saw the President Bush
government rally support from leaders globally condemning this attack with a reason the East
just hates the U.S. because of its sole progression and justifying that the attack was mainly
because of the existence of the U.S. and not because of the foreign policies they were imposing
on the Middle Eastern countries. The main weakness from America blaming the Middle East is
the leaders from the East may fuel hatred towards America but does not necessarily mean that
every national in the Arab nations is opposed to what America does in terms of foreign policies.
4.1. Remedy to Weakness from anti- Americanism
One remedy to this weakness would be since America has seen what anti-Americanism
has done to its country, then it should reverse policies that are not popular with civilians from the
East and solely not deal with leaders who are after their own selfish gains but also include the
general population when implementing policies that are directly affecting them. From the above
problems what are the possible solutions that both the U.S. and the Middle East do in order to
eliminate hatred and move forward to foster peace?
5. Possible Solutions to the Causes of anti-Americanism
5.1. Revamp of Economies

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With the rise in global extremism, terrorism and weapons of quantity destruction, then
stability and security promotion in the Middle Eastern region should be a point of focus in order
to eliminate autocratic governments, stationary economic growth, and religious fanaticism about
extremists in order to promote the abilities of the people who have largely been overshadowed in
this hatred over decades. According to J.L.Holzgrefe (2012, p. 205) one of the main causes of
animosity from the East is because of the poverty, joblessness and economic instability of its
people. In order for the population of these countries to revert their negative ideologies about
America, then there needs to be promotion of jobs and a re-boost of their economy for example,
the U.S. should not solely handle the their main resource, oil, but should facilitate these countries
to be able to mine and export it themselves.
5.2. Support Civilian Efforts
The U.S. led military aid in Iraq can be used positively towards creating a stable republic
and this can be done by supporting the Afghan and Iraq civilians who are striving to build better
economies and by so doing, this can rub positively to the people who use poverty and despair to
terrorize other nations and blame their problems on countries such as America. The creation of
Organization Of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has seen the region become
independent when it comes to management of its oil resource.
5.3. Cooperation of All Stakeholders
The American government in conjunction with other G-20 leaders can initiate peace
building talks in order to bring to a close the Israeli- Palestinian war in order to promote
economic growth in that region. In order for the Middle Eastern region to grow in a parallel
manner then all the leaders from the region should be involved in the creation of a new era. The
UN Arab Development report noted that the region lags behind in terms of education and

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communication and this creates the preconceived prejudice of isolation. Leaders from the middle
east should come together to ensure that the Palestinian-Iraq conflict comes to a close by
themselves and not wholly depending on America to end the war in order to address the issues of
education, economic growth and basic social amenities. I propose that the G-20 leaders create a
trust fund that is geared towards developing the Middle East region and from this fund issues on
Islam cultural sensitivities would be addressed. It is from this fund that issues on democracy and
how the countries are being run, the economic and education progression would be addressed.
From this fund the G-20 leaders would also monitor extremists’ publicity and security of the
Middle Eastern nations.
6. Conclusion
The clash of cultures as seen above has led to negative misconceptions of trust from the
Middle East towards America but there is nothing that America can do about it since both
cultures are parallel. However, America can relax some of its foreign policies to favor the Arabs.
During the Cedar Revolution which saw America give little support towards Lebanon and
therefor pushing Syrian troops out of Lebanon, gave America a positive rising approval ratings
since 2005 from Lebanon. America should hence analyze each country and the oppression they
are facing before laying down their support and they can use the Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution as
a benchmark. The United States should not reserve itself from its relations with Israeli. The
American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) always lobbies for presidents seeking
election in America. Furthermore, Israel is strategically located in the East. What America can
do to curb the hatred from the region from supporting Israeli is to help improve relations of
Israeli and its neighbors for example fostering peace talks between Palestine and Israel. America
should also create lasting coalitions with NGOs and the Arab League when it comes to military

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aid and therefore averting the anti-American sentiments. All said and done, America can use its
public diplomacy to be able to work on its image in the region. By involving all the stakeholders;
leaders, policy makers and the military, America can bend over backwards to learn and
appreciate the Muslim culture and this can help to alleviate the misconceptions and stereotypes
of the Muslim culture. The only lasting solution can be created when all the leaders come
together for the good of the region and moving forward, the Middle Eastern region can be a
lasting hub of peace.

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