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Pro-Israel Group Says Americans Blame Saudi Arabia For Violence
Report by Steve Smith
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 (IslamOnline)– The U.S. media campaign against Saudi Arabia seems to have produced its fruits with a new survey, backed by a pro-Israel lobbying group, showing that Americans now fault Riyadh for "backing terrorism".
The results of the survey appeared in today’s edition of The Washington Post. “The American public, always willing to call 'em as they see 'em, has another candidate for the Axis of Evil hall of shame,” said the Post, one of many U.S. newspapers that have taken part in what seems to the Saudi like an orchestrated attack. “It's Saudi Arabia,” said the paper.
According to the report Americans grade U.S. ally Saudi Arabia ahead of North Korea and Syria as a backer of international terrorism, according to the survey sponsored by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, which is based in San-Francisco. There was no immediate reaction from Arab American groups to the report.
But Muslim-Americans here have often accused pro-Israel think tanks and lobbying organizations of trying to pressure Muslim countries and institutions into a defensive position. They say the Jewish institute is far from fair and that it has tried to tarnish the image of Arabs and Muslims both in the U.S. and abroad.
In his the State of the Union speech, President Bush has identified North Korea, Iraq and Iran as a terrorism "axis of evil." In the Institute’s poll, seven of 10 adults said Iraq supports terrorism and nearly as many - 64 percent - said Iran does, too.
Forty-four percent said Saudi Arabia also was a patron of terror, while fewer had a similar view of North Korea (38 percent) and Syria (35 percent), according to the survey whose compilers claim that they have interviewed some 1,006 randomly selected adults.
"It is a bit of a surprise that this many Americans hold a negative image of Saudi Arabia, a country economically and militarily with the U.S. over the past several decades," the institute's president, Gary Tobin told the Post.
Osama bin Laden is from a prominent Saudi family, and most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudis. Likewise, Saudi money according to Western news reports has flowed to militant groups around the world, Tobin said.
Another surprise: Women were somewhat more likely than men to brand the Saudis as “terrorist supporters” and less likely to criticize North Korea, Iraq, Iran and Syria.
"American women could be perceiving Saudi society as particularly repressive for women, and might be generalizing this negative attitude to other aspects of Saudi government policy," said Sid Groeneman, an institute researcher and president of Groeneman Research & Consulting in Bethesda, Maryland. 
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