“Although many of us, myself included, have spent years studying the Middle East, this was our first physical visit here,” said Myles Murphy of the University of California, San Francisco. “Obviously, a 10-day trip mostly involving meetings with societal and intellectual elites is simply a tiny window on a widely diverse, complex, misunderstood and misrepresented area of the world.”
Gaelen Mancino of St. John’s College in Maryland said the misunderstanding works in the other direction, too.
“One thing I think Saudis may misconceive about America is that we are unified in our thoughts, viewpoints and particularly our policies,” he said. “One of our colleagues identified the US as ‘a Christian nation,’ which is a blatant misunderstanding of who we are as Americans.” Mancino expressed the view that Americans are divided on US policies pertaining to Israel.
“I personally have been led to believe through meeting Saudis of different backgrounds and families that many in the Kingdom think America has a unified policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This could not be further from the actuality of the situation.”
NCUSAR, founded in 1983, is an American nonprofit organization dedicated to improving American knowledge and understanding of the Arab world.
