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Perception of U.S. and its policies lend to combustible environment
CAIRO, Egypt — On my first full day in Cairo,
around the time American and Israeli flags burned in unison, I heard the
dull thud of a policeman's fist slam into the face of an arrested protester
named Ibrahim.
Three hundred Arab protesters were surrounded by an equal number of Egyptian
police dressed in black riot gear. An escalating rumble of dissent was
aimed directly at President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
And there were shouts to free Ibrahim, who soon reappeared with a red
welt on his face but whose fists nonetheless shot into the air victoriously.
He immediately resumed the chorus against Bush and Sharon, then added
a verse to include Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who is ridiculed
as a pet of the West.
The mad chaos of it all was at first intimidating. Yet standing in this
bullring of Arab rage and speaking to the people face to face, the angriest
rhetoric was somehow diffused, scattered like buckshot, I suspect, by
the vastness of its targets — the governments of Israel and America.
I was asked in pleading tones, "Please put facts to words."
This was the same day that Fathi Arafat, the brother of Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat, bore into me with an exasperated stare.
“Is America controlling Israel, or is Israel controlling America?"
he asked. "Believe me, this is a big question."
Even America's staunchest defenders in Egypt — a moderate Arab nation
that has received about $50 billion in U.S. tax dollars since 1975 —
scratch their heads. How does Israel warrant America's unabashed loyalty?
Why is America willing to share in the assaults directed at Israel?
Sitting in the shade of a Tut tree on the outskirts of Cairo, about a
mile from Egypt's largest pyramids, the Muslim wife of a peasant farmer
believed it makes perfect sense that America backs Israel and vice versa.
"You come from the same clan," Sabah Sayed Ali said in Arabic.
Her tone was neither warm nor hostile, but certain and matter-of-fact.
Few Egyptians seem to know, or care, that Bush is Methodist or that only
1.3 percent of the U.S. adult population is Jewish.
Egyptian intellectuals are far more likely to quote numbers such as the
$41.3 million that the pro-Israel lobby has given since 1989 to U.S. federal
candidates and political parties and the relatively paltry $297,000 given
by Arab or Muslim lobbyists.
Or to quote our politicians — 36 members of Congress are Jewish;
none are Muslim — who adopted a resolution of bipartisan support
for Israel in May.
Or to quote the Southern Baptist leader who declared in June that the
prophet Muhammed was a "demon-possessed pedophile."
Or to quote our president, who called Sharon a "man of peace."
RELATED STORIES
U.S. battling image as arrogant superpower
Strength of culture makes U.S. loved, hated on
the Arab Street
INTERACTIVE MAP:
U.S.
relations with the world
CONTINUE ON TO: PART 2
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©2002,
Gannett News Service
An Egyptian man who would only identify himself
as
Ibrahim waves his fists in
the air as he expresses his dissent at President Bush
and Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon, during an
anti-American demonstration
in Cairo, Egypt, in May.
More than 300 Egyptian riot police formed a ring
around
a like number of protesters
during an anti-American protest in Cairo, Egypt, in
May. Several hundred more officers remained at the
ready in police trucks and buses.
“Is America
controlling Israel,
or is Israel controlling America? Believe
me, this is a big question."
Fathi Arafat,
brother of Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat
Gannett News Service
photos by Heather Martin
Morrissey
