Posted on 02/22/2006 6:14:51 AM PST by xzins
Saudis Bemoan Poor Image in U.S. By JIM KRANE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -
On Sept. 11, 2001, Sonia Puopolo, an American Airlines flight attendant, lost her life when terrorists, four of them Saudis, hijacked her plane and slammed it into the World Trade Center in New York.
Last week, Puopolo's daughter Tita Puopolo spoke to a conference packed with Saudi business leaders and asked them to try and repair something else that died in the attacks: the U.S.-Saudi friendship.
"Many people ask me, 'Why would you visit Saudi Arabia after what happened to your mother?'" said Puopolo, speaking at the Jiddah Economic Forum in a black abaya and headscarf that slipped from her blond hair.
But Puopolo said her mother, a former ballet dancer who was 58 when she died, told her to "leave the world a better place" than she found it.
Puopolo's gesture of reconciliation was a rare occurrence for Saudis, who have watched with growing alarm as the kingdom's image in America has plummeted.
Although the two governments remain allies, the kingdom's elites say the country has been unfairly and relentlessly bashed by U.S. lawmakers, ordinary people and some media, who call the country a haven for religious extremists where oil revenues bankroll terrorists.
President Bush was seen by Saudis to be piling on last month, when he called in his State of the Union speech for an end to the United States' dependence on Mideast oil.
At the conference last week, many Saudis asked how it was possible that a country that, in their view, has adopted so much of the American way of life - especially American fast food, cars and education - could find itself so reviled.
"People here are a bit perplexed by what they're seeing in the United States. We know what it's like over there. We lived in the U.S.," said Omar Ziyad, chief operating officer of Gulf One Investment Bank. "The way we're being portrayed in the media over there - it's not the reality."
Many Americans, of course, see wide divisions between their society and Saudi Arabia's, which forbids the practice of any religion except Islam and demands strict segregation of the sexes, including barring women from driving, many jobs or even traveling without a male relative's permission.
Ziyad, speaking flawless English in his white dishdasha robe, also said there was "no factual basis" for allegations that Saudi oil money was funding terrorists.
U.S. Treasury Department investigators have in the past accused Saudi charities of funding al-Qaida. But they have said recently that the kingdom's efforts to crack down on such funding is succeeding.
Americans had good reason to be angry with Saudi Arabia, said Rachel Bronson of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations.
Saudis' confrontation with terrorism in the country wasn't spurred by the Sept. 11 attacks that targeted the United States, but rather by the al-Qaida attacks inside the kingdom that started 18 months later, said Bronson.
Until the kingdom itself came under attack, the Saudi government was in denial about its role permitting the growth of extremism in the country, she said.
Now, she said, Saudi leaders accept some responsibility.
Ziyad and others argue that Saudi Arabia has spent much of its oil wealth to fight al-Qaida-linked extremists who have killed Westerners and Saudis in several attacks since 2003.
Saudis say they, too, are victims of al-Qaida, and believe they still get little credit for their crackdown.
"We are suffering from terrorism," said Sager Nadershah, 38, a manager at the National Commercial Bank in Jiddah. "A member of my family was killed in Saudi Arabia by a bomb. Why should we support terrorism?"
Speakers at the conference here say the Saudi image has withered, in part, because no one dares speak up on the kingdom's behalf. Some pointed a finger at what they called pro-Israel bias by Jewish writers or politicians in the United States.
Americans at the conference, like New Yorker magazine writer Larry Wright, said Saudis are particularly vulnerable to attack because they don't export their culture. Academic freedom is circumscribed in Saudi society, resulting in few books being written, and the country has no film industry because of a government ban.
"You can't control the story if you don't tell your story," Wright said. "As long as this is true, others will define who you are."
The Saudi image gets little help from Riyadh's behind-the-scenes approach to diplomacy, Ziyad acknowledged. "Our culture doesn't put a value on speaking out and being loud," Ziyad said.
The Saudi government did recently, however, embark on a public relations campaign in the United States and send its ambassador and others to spread the Saudi point of view among American civic groups.
The Saudis have a few unlikely allies: One is Gregory Payne, a communications professor at Yale and Tufts universities, who arranges student tours of Saudi Arabia. Student exchanges used to be a hallmark of the relationship between the two countries, but most were canceled after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Payne said his tours now have become oversubscribed by curious American students.
He screened a film documenting a visit by Harvard and Yale students who described their initial fears of visiting the kingdom, and the difference they felt after experiencing Saudi hospitality.
One desperate audience member at the conference asked Peter Robertson, vice chairman of Chevron Corp., why American oil executives weren't defending the kingdom.
"I'm not sure what Saudi Arabia needs in the United States is the oil companies standing up for it," Robertson said. "I'm not sure we'd help you that much."
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On the Net:
Jiddah Economic Forum: http://www.jef.org.sa
http://www.soniapuopolo.com
http://www.saudiamericanexchange.org
Isn't this a little bit like neo-Nazis wondering why they have a bad image amongst Jews?
Quit flying planes into our buildings, and I'm sure we can get along just fine.
Saudi is the source of Al Qaedas:
1) Funding
2) Personnel
3) Leadership
4) Ideology
5) Education (Madrassas)
What else is there?
The war is not over until the House of Saud falls.
Saudi Arabia forbids the practice of any religion except Islam ,demands strict segregation of the sexes resulting in the oppression of women, funds terrorists, abuses foreign nationals living in Saudi Arabia, encourages a Nazi like antisemitism and foments a particularly hate filled version of Islam throughout the world. So what's not to like?
Bump!
1) Funding
2) Personnel
3) Leadership
4) Ideology
5) Education (Madrassas)
What else is there?
The war is not over until the House of Saud falls.
AGREED!!!!
If tens of millions of $ in "public relation attempts" can't convince the Saudis that they themselves ARE the cause of their bad image, there is no hope for them
Zzzzz.
Yeah, Muslims are just a totally calm, cool and collected bunch of people, aren't they?
Why do they think they can put out total BS like this and expect to be taken seriously? Don't they realize we see how violent Islam is every single day? Now Muslims are blowing up each others' mosques in Iraq. These people are absolutely feral!
Perhap the Saudi royal family has good manners. The mob that makes up the "Arab Street" does not.
Hey, the have our Prez firmly up their ass. What more could they want?
Someone should explain to them that the only ones more reviled, by the leftists, is the oil companies.
Don't forget -- you cannot even have a Bible on Saudi land. "Why can't we all just get along?" indeed.
What else is there?
The war is not over until the House of Saud falls.
AGREED!!!!
Gee, you guys have something in common with Al Qaeda. They say the same thing.
So what would take its place?
great graphic....down to the palm tree :>)
The House of Saud doesn't seem to understand that Al Qaeda, bin Laden, 9/11 terrorists, terrorist funding, refusal to allow the US to stage against Iraq from their country......so much more...
Does anyone have a graphic of the twin towers?
There is sone thought that the War on Terror is basically a Saudi civil war that the Saudis managed to export to the world.
Kick out the Royals and let the Muslims have Mecca and Medina. Someone else runs the rest of the country.
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