What the Arab World Thinks It Knows About America
Mohammed Dajani did a deep dive into the Arab world's understanding of the United States:
In total, just over 1,000 books were collected. This shockingly low number alone says a lot about the poverty of Arab knowledge about America. Of the total, about 25 percent covered U.S. foreign policy, reflecting three dominant themes:* the United States as policeman of the world, directing global politics to benefit U.S. interests;
* the Israeli lobby as the major force behind U.S. decisionmaking;
* and the United States as waging a war against Islam.
Typically, the authors of these books have never traveled to or studied in the United States, but that has no impact on their immense credibility and wide readership.
Dajani contends that the three major points above represent biased information about the United States. And indeed, the beliefs about the power of the "Israel lobby" or there being a "war on Islam" are spurious. But the first contention - that the United States acts as policeman of the world, directing global politics to benefit U.S. interests - seems pretty straightforward and unobjectionable, not the product of misinformation. Obviously the U.S. doesn't always succeed in directing global politics toward the benefit of its interests, but that's clearly America's grand strategy.
