Pew Poll on Lebanon - Crucial for all of those educated on the Middle East
Writing by abuhatem on Sunday, 18 of November , 2007 at 2:25 am
Pew released a report today on the results of its poll of the Lebanese population. There were some extremely interesting parts of that poll. Firstly, Saniora’s popularity is extremely high among Sunnis and Christians- and even 20% amongst Shiites. Secondly, 50% of Sunnis in Lebanon regard the U.S. positively, the highest in any Muslim country - comparable to Great Britain, of all countries. Christians also regard the U.S. positively with 80%, while Shiites absolutely do not with 7%.
One thing I found interesting was this:
The 2007 Global Attitudes Pew survey1 revealed that support for terrorism has declined in much of the Muslim world over the last five years, and the decline among Lebanese Muslims has been particularly dramatic: In 2002, 74% of Lebanese believed that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilians could often or sometimes be justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies; today, this number has dropped to 34%.
I think this is accurate. Support for terrorism did rise in the Muslim world especially after 9/11, the second Intifada, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, after the mass Muslim-on-Muslim ethnic cleansing in Iraq, the Hamas-led takeover of Gaza, and the take over of the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr al-Bared, as well as strong statements from Islamic scholars speaking out against terrorism, this support has turned around. People realize how dumb terrorism is, especially when it hits close to home - killing their own civilians, killing their own people. So people are starting to wake up. Al-Qaeda’s Bin Laden has even released a tape deploring the fact the Muslim world is turning against him and urging his followers to “avoid extremism.”
Maybe this is why, and I think people in the U.S. should read and know this:
There is at least one issue on which the Sunni, Shia, and Christian communities can agree however: antipathy toward Osama bin Laden. Only 1% of Sunnis, 2% of Shia, and 2% of Christians say they have a lot or some confidence in the al Qaeda leader to do the right thing in international affairs.
Category: Lebanese Politics
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