The specials showed scenes of American cola-vending machines and American fast-food signage, such as an apparently vandalized Kentucky Fried Chicken sign. Would the lot of the Arab world improve if U.S. business interests simply pulled out?
America helped to save the world from fascism and communism without becoming an imperial power. Yet, in the Arab world with its lack of free press, people -- from schoolchildren to adults -- receive a steady diet of America bashing and American hatred, as well as the "indictment" of American support for the "racist, Zionist" state of Israel.
Arabs complaining about evil America fail to confront this conundrum. With "the great Satan" so thoroughly infused with evil and ill will, why doesn't she use her unparalleled power to simply destroy her enemies? America could, if she wished, simply nuke its enemies, and since America presumably seems indifferent to international public opinion, what would hold her back? None of the Muslims interviewed showed the least concern about the loss of innocent Israeli lives by homicide bombers. If homicide bombing reflects acts of desperation by impoverished, disenfranchised people, why not use the same method to dislodge your own rulers, whom you claim to despise? No one posed that question.
One Arab, for example, complained bitterly of the decades-long rule of the Saudi royal family, and another of Hosni Mubarak's Egyptian government. Yet "punching America in the nose" made more sense to them than punching their own, presumably despised, governments in the nose.
Watching the specials, while attempting to keep an open mind about the plight, yearnings and hopes of the Muslims interviewed, one still reduced their anger to a single word -- irrational. One Muslim, for example, said he yearned for the day when the flag of Islam "flew over the White House"!
If American "interference" in the Muslim world created this hostility, how would a "Muslim flag" over the White House solve the problem? Do the Muslim critics of American policy truly care more about the plight of the Palestinians outside of their own country? Did Egypt or Jordan create a Palestinian state when, pre-1967, they held the Gaza strip and the West Bank, respectively?
A suggestion. On the third anniversary of Sept. 11, Al Jazeera should run specials with Arabic hosts traveling throughout America. Suggested title: "Why Americans See Our Hatred Toward Them as Irrational."