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The results of a new Zogby poll confirm that attitudes toward the United States among Arab populations are as negative as ever. Reaction in this country has generally divided into two camps. One faction shrugs its collective shoulders and embraces the convenient excuse that Arabs always hate the United States. That is untrue historically, and the notion carries with it the insidious implication that anti-Americanism is embedded in Arab DNA, rather than being a reaction to Washington’s policies in that part of the world. The contrasting interpretation is that such hostility is still a carryover from the Bush years and that given time President Obama will improve America’s image in the Arab world as he has in Europe and some other regions (For an earlier argument along those lines,...