“[T]he poll suggests that six out of ten [Americans] think that the Muslim world considers itself at war with the U.S.” “CNN Poll: Many Americans hold unfavorable view of Muslim world,” by Paul Steinhauser for CNN, June 2:
WASHINGTON (CNN) “” Hours before President Barack Obama departs for a trip to the Middle East, a new national poll suggests that only one in five Americans has a favorable view of Muslim countries.
That compares to 46 percent of the people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey who say they have an unfavorable opinion of Muslim countries. That’s up five points from 2002, when 41 percent indicated they had an unfavorable view.
Three in ten meanwhile say they have a neutral opinion of Muslim countries.
The poll also suggests that most Americans think people in Muslim countries don’t think highly of the United States. Nearly eight in ten questioned say people in Muslim countries have a unfavorable opinion of the U.S., with 14 percent saying Muslims hold a favorable view.
But the poll indicates Americans seem to be split on whether such negative opinions by Muslims matter. Fifty-three percent of those questioned say they think Muslim views of the U.S. matter a great deal or a moderate amount, with 47 percent saying that Muslim opinions of the U.S. don’t matter very much or at all.
The poll’s release comes just hours before the president flies to Saudi Arabia for meetings with King Abdullah. Following the stop in Saudi Arabia, Obama heads to Egypt, where Thursday he’ll deliver a long-awaited speech on relations between the United States and the Muslim world. At a town hall in Turkey earlier this year, the president delcared that “the United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam.”
Americans seem to agree with the president: 62 percent of those surveyed say they don’t think the U.S. is at war with the Muslim world, with 36 percent indicating that the country is at war with Muslim countries. Those numbers have remained stable since CNN’s 2002 poll.
But the poll suggests that six out of ten think that the Muslim world considers itself at war with the U.S.
“The feeling seems to be mutual. We distrust Muslims. They distrust Americans. Views of Americans have not changed very much over the past seven years. There are some indications that Muslims’ views of Americans have improved a bit since Barack Obama took office, but they are still not positive,” says CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted May 14-17, with 1,010 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey’s sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.