The Obama Effect on Public Diplomacy

VOL. VI NO. 16, July 30-August 12, 2010

According to the findings of the 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll, Arabs have lost faith in President Barack Obama's policy in the Middle East over the last year, reports The Brookings Institute, while views of the Arab-Israeli conflict seemed stable.

The annual survey, released by the Brooking Institute in conjunction with Zogby International, was conducted between June 29th and July 20th among 3,976 individuals from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates.

According to Al-Jazeera, 62 percent of those surveyed declared they held negative views of Obama, compared to 23 percent from last year's survey. The decline in Obama's popularity was attributed to disappointment in the president's handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and what has been perceived as a lack of follow up on his "promise to pursue rapprochement with Arabs and Muslims during his campaign and the early months of his presidency."

While the findings show that 63 percent of the participants said they were "discouraged" by US foreign policy, the number of people who were "hopeful" also dropped from last year's 51 percent to an alarming 16 percent.

The survey, nevertheless, indicated a "warming to peace" with Israel, with Arab attitudes changing over the last two years regarding reaching a peaceful agreement with Israel. This change in attitude is conditional, as 86 percent of those surveyed based their opinion on Israel's willingness to "return all the territory it has occupied since the 1967 Six Day War, including East Jerusalem."

However, Edgar Bronfman argues in the first of a 5-part series on Middle East peace running at The Huffington Post that moving the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians from its current "snail's pace" into reality requires careful understanding and action upon the openings and opportunities emerging in a time he describes as "the Obama moment."

Bronfman believes that President Obama brings a unique role and style to the international stage, adding a new approach to the foreign policy arena with new challenges, yet even greater opportunities. He points out that while the president supports Israel's security, Obama equally supports the existence of the Palestinian state, and endorses "a different approach to peacemaking."

While the Bush administration seemed to support the "Israel can do no wrong" idea, writes Bronfman, the current national security team that Obama put in place emphasizes balance and rationality. Bronfman stresses that people should revisit Obama's eight "big" speeches, including the Cairo address, in order to see the president's consistent underlying message of outreach and dialogue and overruling ideological rigidity.

Despite the findings of the Brookings Institute survey regarding Arab attitude towards American foreign policy, Obama's Cairo speech seems to yield fruit in Damascus, a year later, writes Sarah Birke for The Christian Science Monitor.

“It started with Obama's speech in Cairo,” said Maan Abdul Salam, a Syrian social analyst. “His message caused enough of a change to allow US organizations to work here,” something many believed to be almost impossible under the previous US administration.

Indeed, public diplomacy efforts are on the rise in Syria as a US non-profit organization called Open Hands Initiative recently started its first project in the country, despite unease about Washington's delay in appointing a new ambassador.

The project assembles a group of American and Syrian disabled children to produce a comic book featuring a disabled hero, and also incorporates collaborations between US music producers and Syrian artist’s recording material used to promote the initiative abroad.

“We can play a unique role in restoring America's image around the world,” says Jay Snyder, the founder of Open Hands and a member of the US government's advisory commission on public diplomacy, reports The Christian Science Monitor. “People recognize that US-Syrian relations are at a critical moment and public diplomacy and people-to-people dialogue can play a critical part.”

Yet, the question remains on how effective such programs are in bringing about wider change. “Syrians view the US through the prism of [the] Israeli-Palestine conflict and until policies change there, the effect of private interventions will be limited,” notes Bilal Saab, a Middle East expert at the University of Maryland.

Other analysts however, such as Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma Joshua Landis, believe that these public diplomacy efforts actually work and also help alter how Washington views Syria.

“This sort of soft diplomacy – as well as rising tourism – will have an effect on Washington in time,” Landis confirms. “There is so much ignorance about Syria – some of which can be blamed on the Syrian authorities – but most people who visit love it and wonder why it is demonized.”

These initiatives appear to be particularly useful in a time when the new generation of Syrian youth is growing up in a globalized age, asserts John Ferguson, the founder of the Huston-based American Voices, which recently ran its YES (Youth Excellence on Stage) Academy workshop for Syrian musicians.

“People here distinguish between people and politics, especially young people who are less concerned with politics than their parents,” adds Ferguson. “They want to have new experiences and to use those to judge for themselves what they hear about the US.”