Since the attacks of September 11, our country has been obsessed with a silly question: “Why do they hate us?” By “they,” the questioner usually means the Arabs or the Muslims. And the answer is invariably, experts tell us, because of the president’s war policy. Millions of taxpayer dollars and hours have been spent trying to solve this riddle premised on a strategic error.
The question we should have been asking is “why don’t they hate them?” In this case, the “them”is Al Qaeda,and the “they”is everyone who fears Allah. Until recently, the fact that Osama bin Laden would often rank higher than most world leaders in opinion polls in Arab countries is more worrying than whether Egyptians or Saudis think President Bush should be tougher on Prime Minister Sharon.
The significance of triple bombings of November 9 in Amman is that they may emerge as the event that starts the tide turning in civilization’s favor. An opinion poll conducted by elGhad newspaper in Jordan on Saturday provides a glimpse of the story. When the Hashemite Kingdom’s subjects were asked, “In your opinion what is the primary motivation behind last Wednesday’s attacks?” the response was extraordinary: 0.9% of those surveyed said the attacks were in the interest of the “Arab cause,” whereas nearly everyone else said it was either to “target Jordan” or “kill innocent people.”…