“They hate us because of our freedom.” President, George W. Bush, would pause and stare pointedly at the audience after making that assertion so that this profound insight he was sharing with the American people could sink in. Then just in case that disclosure didn’t register or resonate, he would add one more bit of supportive information, “they hate our way of life,” which was followed by another punctuating, silent, jaw-jutting stare.

Bush was expressing his understanding of the enmity emanating from the Arab Muslim world on which his administration’s foreign policy was based. Believing and promoting the, it’s all about “who we are” premise, eliminated any reason for the Bush administration to evaluate or review their foreign policy. This line of thinking is basically saying they hate us for who we are, thus there’s no need to concern ourselves with   anything we’re doing.

This was an amazingly naïve and erroneous perception for the leader of the free world to embrace, particularly at a time when he is engaged in hostilities with countries and people in the Arab Muslim world. And as our Commander-in-chief he did not have a clue as to how we are pissing them off.

Not only did we have an administration constructing their foreign policy on a totally false premise, politicians, pundits, and journalists were and are operating under the same misconception. They also consider it a foregone conclusion that the Israeli Palestinian conflict in no way contributes to the enmity coming to America from the Arab Muslim populous. Their reporting, reflects the same flawed premise.
    
This faulty thinking was exhibited in the following exchange that took place recently between Senator John Thune, Republican from South Dakota who serves on the Armed Services Committee, and Andrea Mitchell, world renown veteran journalist with MSNBC. The subject was the closing of Guantanamo. The exchange speaks for itself.  That both the Senator and the veteran journalist were embracing the same fundamental misconception is a classic example of the blind agreeing with the blind as they head for the cliff.

Andrea Mitchell asked,  “Senator you’ve got foreign policy experts on both sides Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton all saying that Guantanamo prison has become a  is a major foreign policy black eye. It is a real sore point Not only with the Arab Muslim world but with the Europeans as well. Doesn’t that argument have any sway with you?”

Senator Thune responded: “One of the arguments they will use is that it’s going to invite more terrorist attacks I mean the terrorist don’t need another excuse to attack us they have proven before Guantanamo was used as a detention facility that they were very willing to attack and kill Americans they have all the reasons in the world and most of it is because they hate our way of life they hate our value system and they want to see America destroyed. So I don’t think that having Guantanamo as a place to house detainees poses any greater risk to an America terrorist attack. In fact I would argue that if you close it and move them into the United States you’re probably inviting more terrorist attacks against American communities.”   

It’s been roughly seven years since this “they hate our values and hate our way of life” was hyped by parties anxious to allay any concerns that the 9-11 attacks were in any way connected to our one-sided support of Israel in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. It has become the--repeat a lie often enough –reality. It has to be the height of self-delusional naïveté to believe that our actions in support of Israel have no consequences.  
 
Following the 9-11 attack on the Twin Towers, Americans were in shock and disbelief, the one question that reverberated around the nation was “why do they hate us?”  TIME, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report wrote cover stories on the origin of this middle-eastern hate question pointedly avoiding attributing the anger and resentment to the featured source, the one enduring offense that has been universally deplored and denounced throughout the Arab Muslim world—Americas one-sided support for Israel’s seizing of Palestinian land, the occupation, and the oppression of the Palestinian people.

The Christian Science Monitor 9-27-2001 written by Peter Ford, was one of the few obscure publications that “told it like it was,” but received little exposure.

From one end of the region to the other, the perception is that Israel can get away with murder - literally - and that Washington will turn a blind eye. Clearly, the US and Israel have compelling reasons for their actions. But little that US diplomats have done in recent years to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians has persuaded Arabs that the US is a fair-minded and equitable judge of Middle Eastern affairs.

Over the past year, Arab TV stations have broadcast countless pictures of Israeli soldiers shooting at Palestinian youths, Israeli tanks plowing into Palestinian homes, Israeli helicopters rocketing Palestinian streets. And they know that the US sends more than $3 billion a year in military and economic aid to Israel.

"You see this every day, and what do you feel?" asks Rafiq Hariri, the portly prime minister of Lebanon, who is not an excitable man. "It hurts me a lot. But for hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Muslims, it drives them crazy. They feel humiliated."

Despite the reality as described in the Scientology report, to divert any thoughts that the hate emanating from the Arab Muslim world was in any way connected to the Israeli Palestinian conflict, a public campaign of disinformation was launched. It was one of the more bizarre and devious efforts of the post 9-11 tragedy.  What followed was a successful public information campaign to convince Americans to suspend common sense and not believe that supporting Israel’s occupation and oppression of Palestinians for sixty years would build up resentment toward the United States in the Arab Muslim world commenced.   

Articles were written on the subject in mainstream newspapers. Prominent Israeli spokespeople made appearances on cable news-shows like CNN offering their expert knowledge on the Arab Muslim mentality. They patiently explained that the “hate” was for our freedom and our way of life.  Binyamin Netanyahu, Alon Pincus who was at the time Israeli Consul General, and Mort Zukerman publisher of U.S. News and World Report were the more prominent of those appearing on cable news shows offering this disinformation.

The sheer brilliance of the pitch was that it appealed to the vanity of Americans who were blinded by their ethnocentrism. George W. Bush with his limited world view and his all- American cowboy mentality was the perfect dupe for this “y’all are the greatest and that’s why they don’t like you,” con. He ate it up and repeated it as his mantra.

The big dissimilarity between President Barack Obama and George W. Bush is Obama isn’t going for the “they hate us because of our freedom” bull—that transparent hustle that too many Americans bought into. This is not about the clash of civilizations of which Bush became convinced and which Obama knew otherwise.

If the issue was as Senator Thune insisted and Andrea Mitchell agreed, “because they hate our way of life they hate our value system and they want to see America destroyed,” then the clash of civilizations would be the obvious and inevitable outcome—next stop Armageddon. That’s why Obama’s speech in a Muslim country was so momentous. In assuring the Arab Muslim world that he brings a different perspective to the equation form the previous administration, one based on a recognition of the real issues of Arab Muslim concerns, a major misdirected foreign policy course was corrected.