CHICAGO: Arabs in the Middle East have a direct stake in the outcome of next week’s US presidential election. That was the conclusion reached on Wednesday by the guests who took part in a US radio discussion of a recent YouGov poll, commissioned by Arab News, that asked people across the region for their opinions on the candidates and their policies.
Arab News Editor-in-Chief Faisal Abbas and columnist Dalia Al-Aqidi agreed that one of the key conclusions that can be drawn from the “Election 2020: What do Arabs Want?” survey is that most people in the region believe the election will have an effect on their lives.
About 40 percent of those polled said Democratic challenger Joe Biden is the better choice for the region, compared with only 12 percent who preferred Trump. However, 53 percent said they had opposed the policies of Biden’s former running mate, President Barack Obama, who is currently on the campaign trail to rally support for his former vice president.
“What is very interesting about the study we did this time around is that while the majority thinks that Biden might be better for the region (about half of the respondents) don’t even know who Biden is,” Abbas said during the “The Ray Hanania Show” on WNZK AM 690 Radio in Detroit, which is part of the US Arab Radio Network. “They are voting for a candidate they don’t know just so they don’t vote for Trump.”
Biden’s close association with Obama is seen by many Arabs as a negative factor.
“You cannot separate Joe Biden from Barack Obama,” said Abbas. “Yet even people who said Biden is better for the region, 58 percent of them said that they would want Biden to distance himself from Obama’s policies, and they think Obama left the region in a worse-off situation.”
Al-Aqidi said it is unrealistic to expect that Biden would disregard his personal history with Obama.
“This is impossible — you cannot expect Biden to distance himself from Obama,” she said. “Actually, Obama is helping and trying to save Biden in the past two weeks, campaigning with him.
“Even in Biden’s platform, it always goes back to ‘I was a VP and as a VP I did this.’ It would be extremely hard for Biden to distance himself … if Biden wins, he will be a shadow of Obama.”
The YouGov survey, which was commissioned by the Arab News Research and Studies Unit, asked 3,097 people in 18 Arab countries about their opinions on a number of issues relating to the US presidential election.
The continuation of Washington’s recent tough stance on Iran was one of the top issues that respondents said the winner should focus on. Notably, the war posture adopted against Iran by the Trump administration, and the strict sanctions it has imposed on the regime in Tehran, received strong support from people polled in Iraq (53 percent), Lebanon (38 percent) and Yemen (54 percent), three nations that have been severely affected by the regional activities of the Iranian state.
“This is not a marginal issue for people living in the Middle East,” said Abbas. “You just have to look at countries, any country in the Middle East: where you find destruction, you will find Iranian fingerprints all over.”
The main issue is not religion or differences between Sunnis and Shi’ites, he added, it is Iranian interference in the affairs of other nations.
“As the former ambassador to the US, Prince Khaled, said, Saudi Arabia used to send tourists to Lebanon — Iran sends terrorists,” Abbas said.
“For people who have short-term memories let me remind them it was the Iranians who attacked the US Marines in Beirut. It’s the Iranians who transformed (Beirut) from a tourist destination … today, Lebanon is (experiencing) one of its worst-ever economic crises and it does not look like there is a way out for it.”
Arabs in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen are therefore very supportive of Trump’s tough approach to Iran, he added.
“Nobody is safe from the Iranian tentacles,” Abbas said. “This is a mad regime.”
On another important regional issue, slightly more than half of the Arabs polled said they do not support a bigger role for Washington in the peace process between the Palestinians and Israelis. However, the proportion of Palestinians living in the occupied territories who favor greater US involvement was higher.
“I think the Trump administration succeeded in this issue (pursuing peace between Israel and the Palestinians) more than any other previous administration,” said Al-Aqidi. “The US approach now is extremely different and it is driven by number one, the economy.”
She added that Trump’s strategy of brokering the recent agreements by the UAE and Bahrain to normalize relations with Israel was “the result of a different strategy.”
“The Ray Hanania Show,” which is sponsored by Arab News, is broadcast on WNZK AM 690, on the US Arab Radio Network, from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. EST on Wednesdays. There is also a live simulcast of the show on the Arab News Facebook page.
Arabs in Middle East know the US election will affect their lives, experts say
https://arab.news/pmf8n
Arabs in Middle East know the US election will affect their lives, experts say
- Editor-in-chief and columnist take part in US radio discussion of Arab News/YouGov survey of opinions on the presidential candidates
- Whether Biden triumphs or Trump wins second term, the poll suggests most people in region want Washington to maintain a tough stance on Iran
Greenland crisis boosts Danish apps designed to identify and help boycott US goods
- Boycott campaigns are usually short-lived and real change often requires an organized effort rather than individual consumers
COPENHAGEN: The makers of mobile apps designed to help shoppers identify and boycott American goods say they saw a surge of interest in Denmark and beyond after the recent flare-up in tensions over US President Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland.
The creator of the “Made O’Meter” app, Ian Rosenfeldt, said he saw around 30,000 downloads of the free app in just three days at the height of the trans-Atlantic diplomatic crisis in late January out of more than 100,000 since it was launched in March.
Apps offer practical help
Rosenfeldt, who lives in Copenhagen and works in digital marketing, decided to create the app a year ago after joining a Facebook group of like-minded Danes hoping to boycott US goods.
“Many people were frustrated and thinking, ‘How do we actually do this in practical terms,’” the 53-year-old recalled. “If you use a bar code scanner, it’s difficult to see if a product is actually American or not, if it’s Danish or not. And if you don’t know that, you can’t really make a conscious choice.”
The latest version of “Made O’Meter” uses artificial intelligence to identify and analyze several products at a time, then recommend similar European-made alternatives. Users can set preferences, like “No USA-owned brands” or “Only EU-based brands.” The app claims over 95 percent accuracy.
“By using artificial intelligence, you can take an image of a product … and it can make a deep dive to go out and find the correct information about the product in many levels,” Rosenfeldt told The Associated Press during a demonstration at a Copenhagen grocery store. “This way, you have information that you can use to take decisions on what you think is right.”
‘Losing an ally’
After an initial surge of downloads when the app was launched, usage tailed off. Until last month, when Trump stepped up his rhetoric about the need for the US to acquire Greenland, a strategically important and mineral-rich Arctic island that is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark.
Usage peaked Jan. 23, when there were almost 40,000 scans in one day, compared with 500 or so daily last summer. It has dropped back since but there were still around 5,000 a day this week, said Rosenfeldt, who noted “Made O’Meter” is used by over 20,000 people in Denmark but also by people in Germany, Spain, Italy, even Venezuela.
“It’s become much more personal,” said Rosenfeldt, who spoke of “losing an ally and a friend.”
Trump announced in January he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats after he said a “framework” for a deal over access to mineral-rich Greenland was reached with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s help. Few details of that agreement have emerged.
The US began technical talks in late January to put together an Arctic security deal with Denmark and Greenland, which say sovereignty is not negotiable.
Rosenfeldt knows such boycotts won’t damage the US economy, but hopes to send a message to supermarkets and encourage greater reliance on European producers.
“Maybe we can send a signal and people will listen and we can make a change,” he added.
The protest may be largely symbolic
Another Danish app, “NonUSA,” topped 100,000 downloads at the beginning of February. One of its creators, 21-year-old Jonas Pipper, said there were over 25,000 downloads Jan. 21, when 526 product scans were performed in a minute at one point. Of the users, some 46,000 are in Denmark and around 10,000 in Germany.
“We noticed some users saying they felt like a little bit of the pressure was lifted off them,” Pipper said. “They feel like they kind of gained the power back in this situation.”
It’s questionable whether such apps will have much practical effect.
Christina Gravert, an associate professor of economics at the University of Copenhagen, said there are actually few US products on Danish grocery store shelves, “around 1 to 3 percent”. Nuts, wines and candy, for example. But there is widespread use of American technology in Denmark, from Apple iPhones to Microsoft Office tools.
“If you really want to have an impact, that’s where you should start,” she said.
Even “Made O’Meter” and “NonUSA” are downloaded from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store.
Gravert, who specializes in behavioral economics, said such boycott campaigns are usually short-lived and real change often requires an organized effort rather than individual consumers.
“It can be interesting for big supermarket brands to say, OK, we’re not going to carry these products anymore because consumers don’t want to buy them,” she said. “If you think about large companies, this might have some type of impact on the import (they) do.”
On a recent morning, shoppers leaving one Copenhagen grocery store were divided.
“We do boycott, but we don’t know all the American goods. So, it’s mostly the well-known trademarks,” said Morten Nielsen, 68, a retired navy officer. “It’s a personal feeling … we feel we do something, I know we are not doing very much.”
“I love America, I love traveling in America,” said 63-year-old retiree Charlotte Fuglsang. “I don’t think we should protest that way.”
