The Tensions Between The United States And The Middle East

Islam, a religion of people submitting to one God, seeking peace and a way of life without sin, is always misunderstood throughout the world. What some consider act of bigotry, others believe it to be the lack of education and wrong portrayal of events in media; however, one cannot not justify the so little knowledge that America and Americans have about Islam and Muslims. Historically there are have been myths, many attacks on Islam and much confusion between Islam as a religion and Middle Easter culture that is always associated with it. This paper is meant to dispel, or rather educate about the big issues that plague people’s minds with false ideas and this will only be touching the surface.

September 11th holds many hard and upset feelings around the world today. The harsh actions of Muslim extremists unfortunately completely changed the way Muslims are treated, especially in the United States. These events, exacerbated islamophobia. Unfortunately, “the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, connect Muslims and Islam to terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States.” (Byng) Although it has been over a decade since the attack, many still feel racist and discriminatory attitudes towards Muslims. Muslims are the targeted minority in the United States, “the 9/11 terrorist attacks shifted the social and political context for Muslims in the United States. Terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States carried out by Muslims places an identity at the center of national and global politics.” (Byng) The blame of the horrible terrorist attacks, rather than be placed on terrorists or religious extremist, has been placed on Islam in America. After September 11th, hate crimes towards Muslims skyrocketed, “the most dramatic change noted by the report was a more than 1,600 percent increase in reported hate crimes against Muslims -- a jump from 28 hate incidents in 2000 to 481 last year.”

The United States has a long withstanding legacy of the racialization of ethnic communities as part of the non-white “Other”. As seen through the downward mobility of Arab, Muslim, and Middle-Eastern Americans- who had originally been granted access to the privileges of whiteness- after being identified collectively as a threat to the expansion and success of the US empire, Arab, Muslim, and Middle-Eastern Americans began to be racialized as part of the non-white “Other” even before 9/11. Media representations of Arab, Muslim, and Middle Eastern communities outside the borders of the United States served to construct the “terrorist” identity, which resulted in the collective racialization of Arab, Muslim, and Middle Easterners as terrorists. Through the conflation of the racialization of the Arab, Muslim, and Middle-Eastern identity with the notions of terrorism and risk, the aftermath of 9/11 led to an emergence of racially motivated government policies and practices, such as anti-immigration measures and FBI raids on Muslim community centers, as well as an increase in the level of hate-based crimes against Muslim, Arab, and Middle Eastern Americans that contributed to an internalized sense of fear and insecurity for these individuals in American society. Furthermore, this sense of internal internment within the Muslim, Arab, and Middle Eastern community, coupled with the reality of discrimination and federal exclusion, demonstrates how the racialization of Arab and

The Middle East as a whole is not viewed in a very bright light within the United States, and Iran is no exception. Many Americans view that Iran and it 's people are full of hatred for the U.S. and that they all have the same ideology and hatred that their government has shown. What Americans don 't know is that this is not the case. Many Iranians are oppressed and resent their government, though they won 't outright say it for fear. There are Iranians who resent the U.S. as well, but those Iranians dislike U.S. not because of religion or any other cliche reason that many Americans would believe. The only thing Americans see and hear is what the news and government has to say regarding Iran. This American viewpoint stemmed from the 1979 Iranian Revolution in which the U.S. favored shah was overthrown and the U.S. consulate was attacked. This made it seem as if the Iranians were irrational and bloodthirsty against the West for no reason, but they had a very good reason for being filled with anger.

As years went by those who opposed the leadership of these despotic leaders were locked behind bars. Moreover, public exchequer was mismanaged. As their leadership realm and powers were strengthened, the civil rights of citizens to democracy and politics were negated. In some cases such as in Libya and Egypt, leaders such as Muammar Gaddafi initially had revolutionary slogans eventually took over power. However, these leaders did not strive to ensure that it was devolved to the masses. As such, the status of citizens reduced to that of aliens.

The United States has had some international issues with Middle Eastern countries in the past. It goes without saying; the most recent is the current gulf war led by George W. Bush and of course the previous gulf war led by his father George H.W. Bush. With neighboring Iran, there have been quarrels such as the Iran-Contra affair. This involved a political scandal in which Ronald Reagan's administration sold military arms to Iran. At this time they were in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War, while the United States had hostages held in Lebanon by Hezbollah. The United States hoped that Iran would influence Hezbollah to release the American hostages, but didn't. Finally, with Saudi Arabia also part of the Middle East, the United States

Ever since September 11, 2001 Americans along with the majority of the world’s population have been skeptical of Muslims. It’s a sad reality but it’s hard for people to think of a Muslim without linking them directly to terrorism. But these assumptions aren’t totally out of the blue—the Muslim’s religion, Islam, teaches a low tolerance for other religions and the Islamic government has no separation of church and state, so it’s only normal to assume that their government shall have a low tolerance as well—some however, immediately translate this into terrorism. Through the Islamic government and religion, relations with foreign countries, and separation amongst themselves it can be concluded that Islamic Fundamentalism is clearly a threat

The crux of the institution of government from the untenable state of nature that subsisted in the days gone by was for the protection of life, liberty and property. The doctrine of individual unilateral discretion which provided a fertile ground for the domination of the strong over the weak in society diminished in significance. So sacrosanct was the need to protect the rights and freedoms of all people that all and sundry gave up their rights, powers, and privileges of the civil society for its care. The developed world took lead in this province and in the modern world, the United States of America is considered the land of the free people in the world as a result. In pursuance of this goal, US’s policy, both domestically and internationally has been to protect not only its citizens, but also to perfect recalcitrant nations bent on civil rights infractions. On the domestic front, the rule is that should any of its citizen’s life or limb be threatened or violated by a foreigner; then the Ker-Frisbie Rule is invoked to bring the perpetrators to book. On the international plane, it has pursued a no-holds-barred approach to police the world as the Big Brother hence the tagline, ‘Uncle Sam is watching.’

kid, I had no prior knowledge to use to contest this idea which was portrayed

In the days after September 11, 2001, American leaders rushed to portray Islam as a peaceful religion that had been "hijacked" by a fanatical band of terrorists. One hopes that these assurances were merely tactical—that nobody was meant to believe them and that they were meant to assure the Muslim world that the inevitable American

The objective of this work is to examine Islam, a highly controversial sensitive issue in today's world and specifically to examine the misconceptions, beliefs, and values of those of the Islamic faith. Most people think that the majority of Muslims live in the Middle East, while in reality there are more people of the Islamic faith living in Indonesia. Islam, just as Judaism and Christianity, is practiced in various cultures, serves to shape, and is shaped by those cultures. This study examines the perceptions of those of the three faiths in various countries and how they view one another and seek to answer how a level of threat is felt by those belonging to these three religious groups in various countries. Countries examined in this study include those of the United States, Great Britain, India, Pakistan, and the Middle East. The depth of understanding or the teachings of Islam among the various religious groups in these various countries will also be examined in terms of how these understandings impact the ways that Muslims and non-Muslims interact and communicate with one another.

To illustrate, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) organizes suicide bomb attacks in many countries and they claim that they justify this attacks with Islam and different interpreting of Quran. These attacks pose a threat for the innocent people all around the world and cause a massive fear from Muslims among non-Muslim people. What’s more, due to ISIS’s belief that it represents the Islam, people generalize all Muslims as terrorists. In this point, in his article ‘Islamophobia plays right into the hands of Isis’ Jones (2015) express that it is certainly enough to say that the vast majority of Muslims do not except their interpretation of Islam and he emphasizes that there is a highly big distance between Muslim world population and the ISIS. Besides, as it is known ISIS also attacks several Muslim countries and causes to death many Muslims. In spite of this fact, it might be suggested that one of the most important reason for the Islamophobia in the world is existence of terrorist groups and their brutal

The connection between Islam and terrorism was not intensified until the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center that pushed the Islamic faith into the national and international spotlight (Smith, 2013). As Smith (2013) articulated, “Many Americans who had never given Islam a second thought before 9/11 now had to figure out how to make sense of these events and relate to the faith tradition that ostensibly inspired them” (p. 1). One way in which people made sense of these events was through the media channels that influenced their overall opinions by shaping a framework of censored ideas (Yusof, Hassan, Hassan & Osman, 2013). In a survey conducted by Pew Forum (2012), 32% of people reported that their opinions of Muslims were greatly influenced by the media’s portrayal of Islam that depicted violent pictorials and fundamentalist Muslims. Such constant negative depiction is likely to lead to the inevitable—prejudice and hate crime. For instance, in 2002 alone there were approximately 481 hate crimes that were carried out against Muslims (Smith, 2013). Ever since the 9/11 attacks Muslim people have been the target of “suspicion, harassment and discrimination” (Talal, n.d., p. 9).

This survey reveals that the problem with the Islam faith is not racial: The Muslim people are welcomed, the Islam faith is not. The violence that has been perpetrated against America, whether executed or planned, has brought to fruition religious persecution not seen since the persecution of the Jews in W.W.II. This “trust no Arab” attitude has brought shame to the Constitutional intentions of freedom of religion intended by our forefathers, and has set religious tolerance back 200 years. Looking at media representation of Muslim Americans prior to 9-11, it shows religious diversity in America, depicting Muslim America as just another religious community seeking to advance and protect their interests, not unlike other Americans. After 9-11 the media portrayed representations of threat and fear, creating boundaries between Muslims and other Americans. Such depiction transforms the identity of Muslims and American religious pluralism (Byng, M. pg. 3).