About This Project

This website is meant to serve as an educational tool through which people in the United States can learn about Arab opinions of the American government and people directly from individual Jordanians, Palestinians, and Syrians. Currently, much of what Americans believe about people from the Middle East has been determined by US politicians, CNN, and Hollywood. This website creates a space in which Arabs can articulate their opinions about the US to an American audience, in their own words and unfiltered by American politicians or media personnel. I believe that in order to foster true understanding between our regions of the world, we must create avenues for communication between everyday people. My purpose in developing this site was to create one such means for communication.

I conducted interviews in November of 2005 in Amman, Jordan and May of 2006 in Damascus, Syria. Each interview focuses on the following four topics: the events of September 11, 2001, the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, the US relationship with Israel and role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and American values, culture, and people.