The view from an Arab nation

"Are you American?" an Egyptian stranger asked. "I'm so sorry about what happened in your country; I really hope your family is safe." This woman's question to an American living in Cairo typified the response of the Egyptian public to the attacks on New York and Washington one week ago. "Horror, Horror," and "American Nightmare" emblazoned the front page of Al-Ahram (to the Middle East what the New York Times is to the United States), alongside a photograph taken through a charred windowpane with an American flag hanging in the foreground. A city where a crowd demonstrated peacefully against the United States' pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian policy last Monday poured out sympathy toward the same country when the news hit on Tuesday. The celebrations shown on U.S. television were the exception to the rule; unfortunately such exuberance makes better news than countless families sitting at home, glued to the radio in utter disbelief.

Such public largesse seems all the more laudable in the face of increased abuses of the Palestinians — a people with whom the Egyptian public empathizes greatly — while world attention focuses on the United States. Jenin has been surrounded and routed, peace talks cancelled. Egypt's dual sympathy toward Americans and Palestinians is contradictory in the black-and-white political framework used currently by the United States. However, here the two are inextricably connected. The Liberal Wafd Party's Ibrahim Dessouki Abaza said, "We condemn terrorist activities against the United States; equally, we condemn terrorism by Israelis against Palestinian civilians" (Al-Ahram, Sept. 13-19).

This connection reveals a deeper disillusionment with U.S. policy. Gamal Nkrumah of the same newspaper wrote, "For a few horrifying hours, the citizens of the world's most imposing city, New York, and America's political nerve centre, Washington, experienced the terror suffered every day by other less fortunate people in countries where death has become too commonplace to mention: Palestine, Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, Sierra Leone or Sudan." From this vantage point, while America appears aware of its power inasmuch as it concertedly influences political affairs, its "awareness" seems to stop there. So focused on its own interests and its good intentions, the government does not realize many of the detrimental bi-products of its policies. While the Bush administration reportedly stepped back from the United States' prior enthusiastic support for Israel, many Palestinians and Arabs still see guns and tanks paid for by the United States killing its citizens.

The U.S. media's tendency to homogenize its ally's enemies makes the common "Egyptian viewpoint" difficult to understand. In the United States, the terms "Arabs," "Muslims" and "Palestinians" are perceived as monoliths and are often equated (as recent persecution of minority groups in the United States has illustrated). In fact, as many undercurrents flow through Palestinian society as American, only there survival rests in the balance.

U.S. policymakers illustrate their omission of this fact in their support of Sharon's ultimatum to Arafat to stop the violence as a prerequisite to negotiations. Such a request seems little less than naive in light of local (Palestinian and Arab) criticism of Arafat's repressive dictatorship and the lack of consensus in Palestinian public opinion. The effect of this homogenization would also become evident if the "average" American were asked to point out Afghanistan on a map, much less to distinguish between the varied and often tensely related Arab governments. The United States' relationship to the Middle East encourages equation of Arabs and Palestinians when in fact, one quarter of the world's Arabs live in Egypt, with other North African countries a distant second and third in Arab populations.

Similarly it took the contrast between Egyptian and U.S. newspapers to reveal that Palestinians are rarely quoted in the U.S. press; Sharon's portrayal of affairs is taken as the truth, Sabra and Shatila seemingly forgotten. While the "peace process" dominates U.S. concerns, Egyptian media cries that an estimated 70 percent of Palestinians were driven from their homes in 1948 and continue to have their homes bull-dozed, their water restricted, their territories closed and their job and educational opportunities destroyed. Egyptians are undeniably more likely to identify with Palestinians than with Israelis: They share a common history as Arabs under the Ottoman Empire. Egypt became an independent republic soon after the British relinquished their mandates and has since watched the Palestinians' 53-year ongoing struggle. However, in an equally 'impossible' paradox, Egyptians do not forget the horror of the Holocaust. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, no side is entirely right.

Without advocating terrorism, Egyptian public opinion begins to answer why terrorists revert to violent methods to achieve change. Despite their unrelated operations, members of terrorist groups seem to share a lack of opportunity: They do not have fortune's privilege of living in a wealthy nation founded upon free speech, freedom of religion and free press, with two oceans to protect it. No humane being denies that the events of Sept. 11, 2001, defined tragedy; however, as an anonymous individual wrote, "An enemy is someone whose story you have not yet heard." Perhaps tragedy will awaken the United States to listen. Alexandra Snyder is currently studying abroad at the American University in Cairo. She can be reached at snyderalex@hotmail.com.