America and the Arab world: Shifting sands
With so much going on, is America's reputation in ME, because of its continued support of Israel since October 2023, at "irreversible" risk?
Do you remember Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi throwing shoes at the then US president George W Bush in the middle of a press conference in Baghdad in December 2008?
He did it in protest of America's bloody invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the consequent occupation.
The clip, in today's words, went explosively viral. It captured the world's imagination, and captured the anti-American sentiment in the Middle East.
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The 2003 invasion and occupation caused approximately half a million Iraqi deaths. In 2011, the United States sanctioned the full withdrawal of its troops. But the damage had been done. Iraq was invaded on the back of "WMD" allegations, later proven false.
"After the United States' 2003 invasion of Iraq, other polls consistently found that few ordinary Arab citizens held positive views of the United States. By 2022, however, their attitudes had improved somewhat," Michael Robbins, Director and Co-Principal Investigator at Arab Barometer, recently wrote with co-authors on Foreign Affairs.
Prior to that, the US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 "to wipe out al-Qaeda" after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on US soil. It is probably accurate to say the United States' reputation in the ME took grave hits in the first decade of the 21st century.
However, things improved, according to polling surveys conducted by Arab Barometer, a nonpartisan research organisation that surveys 16 Arab countries.
All this changed on 7 October 2023 — Hamas' terrorist attack in Israel and the immediate military retaliation by Israel in Gaza, which continues. This seems to have dug new holes in America's "good guy" armour.
The end of last year did not only see the pulverisation of Gaza at the hands of Israel (which continues), but fissures across the region resurfaced. There is also an unprecedented global pro-Palestinian movement and advocacy.
With so much going on, is America's reputation in ME, because of its continued support of Israel since October 2023, at "irreversible" risk?
A recent Foreign Affairs article, authored by three experts, tries to answer this using opinion polling findings and stresses how "the notion that Arab leaders are not constrained by public opinion is a myth. The Arab Spring uprisings toppled governments in four countries, and widespread protests in 2019 led to changes in leadership in four other Arab countries."
The built-up and post-October
Israel's decades-long policy and treatment of Palestinians meant Israel's ties with other ME countries were always in flux, mostly trying to establish "good relationships." The US played a crucial role in these "normalisation" efforts.
"The United States is irreplaceable as a broker for normalisation deals. The Egyptian-Israeli and Israeli-Jordanian peace accords were largely held in place by the enormous amount of assistance the United States gave to both Arab countries," wrote Michael Robbins with Princeton University's Amaney A Jamal and the University of Michigan's Mark Tessler.
It was around 2020 when four members of the Arab League — Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — launched processes to normalise their diplomatic relations with Israel. And in 2023 summer, Saudi Arabia — deemed the most important Arab country – was "poised to do so, too."
In fact, many pundits said "a new regional world order" was on the horizon.
China's record on protecting rights and freedoms at home and abroad is poor, but the Lebanese and Jordanian populations now consider the United States' record to be even worse.
However, 7 October upended that reality. Saudi Arabia will not normalise relations with Israel unless the Palestinian issue is resolved, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told CNN in an interview in January 2024.
The unprecedented death toll, violence, bombing, and siege of Gaza at the hands of Israel have sent ripples throughout the world.
In all this, for more than eight months, Israel has become a lot like a pariah state on the global stage, with a waning number of countries unconditionally still backing it. However, the United States remains steadfast. This has led to widespread and fierce criticism of the US in the court of world opinion.
But are people in the ME, where public polling and opinion typically live under suffocation, feeling differently about the United States?
According to the Foreign Affairs article, each Arab Barometer survey polls over 1,200 respondents and is conducted in person in the respondent's place of residence, covering a wide range of topics. It is said to be a means to gauge public opinion in the Middle East.
Additionally, the article said that since 7 October, Arab Barometer has completed surveys in five diverse Arab countries: Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania and Morocco.
Arab Barometer's previous round of surveys in these countries was conducted between 2021 and 2022. So "factors other than the war in Gaza may have contributed to changes in public opinion between then and now," cautioned the authors.
However, one poll finding in the region stood out. Between 13 September and 4 November 2023, Arab Barometer conducted a scheduled survey in Tunisia involving 2,406 interviews. About half of these interviews were conducted before 7 October and about half afterwards.
"We calculated the average responses during the three weeks before Hamas's attack and then tracked daily changes in the weeks that followed—finding a swift, sharp drop in the percentage of respondents who held favourable views of the United States.
The results in most other countries we surveyed in 2021–22 and after 7 October followed a similar pattern: in all but one, views of the United States also declined markedly," the authors wrote.
The Morocco factor
Only in Morocco, post-October, approximately 70% of respondents in the Arab Barometer surveys held favourable views of the US. The authors pointed to a recent move by the US that can explain this phenomenon: the recognition of Morocco's sovereignty over the territorially disputed Western Sahara in 2020.
This happened "in exchange for Morocco's formalising diplomatic ties with Israel," wrote the authors.
No other UN member state was willing to do so against a movement backed by Algeria that seeks to establish an independent Western Shahara state.
This is perhaps a sign of how diplomacy can win over sides. If you are to look at Lebanon's polling results from before and after 7 October, it becomes more clear how US foreign policy in one country influences its public opinion.
Old and new fissures: Iran and China
The contention between Riyadh and Tehran has a long history. While these two major ME powers have vied for greater influence over the region for decades, since 7 October, Iran's proxies (represented by Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon) have remained the most active.
The Houthis – a Yemeni rebel group backed by Iran – were the only ones to take military action against Israel. They blocked and attacked ships on the Red Sea trade route — causing delays and a lot of losses. Their demand? To stop bombing Gaza. Sanaa was eventually bombed by the US and Co.
Hezbollah, backed by Iran, has been in active combat with Israel — with Israeli military officials declaring a possible war on Lebanon now and then. In October 2023, Iran even called for all of the Muslim world to unite against Israeli aggression.
From the outside, Iran (and its proxies) seems to lock horns with the rest of the ME — much of which had previously started the efforts to normalise their ties with Israel.
This was further proven by "the help Jordan gave Israel in repelling Iran's 13 April drone and missile attack, and decisions by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to give the United States intelligence ahead of that attack, suggested that key Arab leaders still believe that a regional realignment is in their interest," the authors wrote.
Despite their anger at the United States' policies towards Gaza, Arab publics made it clear that they want the United States to be involved in solving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
After the massive backlash that these countries faced from their own public, "Arab regimes have remained quiet about their role out of fear of further inflaming the anger of their citizens."
One of the other poll findings is interesting, showing the influence of China. "c
China previously had minimal engagement in the ME, particularly based on economic deals. However, experts think the Gaza chapter may have widened the scope for China to enter the region.
Overall, one trend becomes clear: there has been a sharply negative turn among ordinary citizens in the ME in how they view the US; more respondents support the two-state solution, and more people think that the Biden administration must prioritise the Palestinian cause.
Not all is lost
"Despite their anger at the United States' policies towards Gaza, Arab publics made it clear that they want the United States to be involved in solving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis," the authors wrote.
They also said the United States' role in the Middle East is not irreversible. And that "the survey results also suggest specific shifts in approach that would likely improve Arabs' perceptions of the United States, including pushing harder for a cease-fire in Gaza, increasing US humanitarian assistance to the territory and the rest of the region, and, in the longer term, working for a two-state solution.
Essentially, to win back its reputation, the US must show the Middle East that it cares for the suffering of the Palestinians as it does for that of the Israelis.
Hard sell, surely, but some experts are still holding out.
"In Jordan, the percentage of respondents that viewed the United States favorably dropped dramatically, from 51 percent in 2022 to 28 percent in a poll conducted in the winter of 2023–24. In Mauritania, the percentage of respondents that viewed the United States favorably fell from 50 percent in a survey conducted in the winter of 2021–22 to 31 percent in the survey conducted in the winter of 2023–24, and in Lebanon, it fell from 42 percent in the winter of 2021–22 to 27 percent in early 2024. Similarly, the percentage of respondents who agreed that U.S. President Joe Biden's foreign policies were "good" or "very good" dropped by 12 points in Lebanon and nine points in Jordan over the same period."
