-Caveat Lector- THE WASHINGTON POST By Carol Morello Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 27, 2003; Page A32
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, March 26 -- The young sons of Selwa Hazzaa consider it a mark of shame that they were born in the United States, a country whose military they now see nightly on television waging battle in neighboring Iraq. "Yuck!" says the 11-year-old at every mention of America. The 12-year-old expresses even more contempt. "I hate the States," he told his mother, who spent most of her childhood in the United States. "I wish I weren't from there. I don't want to go to college there." Hazzaa has told them it is fine to hate President Bush, but not everything American. Still, she returned home one day to find her older son throwing his favorite U.S.-made snack food into the trash bin. "I am so afraid that I am breeding a future terrorist," said Hazzaa, a prominent eye surgeon in Riyadh. "Now I can control him, but what about 10 years from now?" Throughout the Arab world, a new generation of young people is growing up and coming of age at a time of rampant anti-American sentiment. The mounting anger at the U.S.-led war against Iraq is particularly striking in Saudi Arabia, where until a few years ago U.S. ideals and products were widely admired. Much of the Saudi upper and professional class was educated in the United States, including many of the government technocrats, and many Saudis maintain warm friendships they forged abroad. But some of these families are now deciding not to send their children to study in the United States. Tofoul Marzouki, 21, had planned to pursue a master's degree in the United States. Now she is looking at schools in Canada. "I have nothing against the people; it's the government," said Marzouki, who ordered a Domino's pizza the other night that her cousin refused to touch because it was made by a U.S. company. "Visiting America or going there to study is out of the question. I'm so angry at the government, I wouldn't feel comfortable there." Saudis trace the negative sentiment to the hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians that broke out in September 2000. In markets, classrooms and private homes, Saudis have seen endless television images of Israelis using U.S.-supplied weaponry against Palestinians. Even children anguish over the Palestinian cause and wonder why the United States provides guns to Israel. The anger deepened in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Visa restrictions tightened and many Saudi students studying in the United States returned home with tales of Muslims being harassed and stereotyped as terrorists. Many in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers who carried out the attacks, say Americans have tied all Saudis -- and their religion -- to terrorism. A critical mass of suspicion and hostility coalesced when the U.S. campaign against Iraq culminated in an invasion. Today, it is all but impossible to find anyone here who does not oppose the war in Iraq. In an Arab American Institute opinion poll conducted in early March by Zogby International, 97 percent of Saudis questioned said they had an unfavorable opinion of the United States, up from 87 percent a year ago. "I think that underestimates it," said Awardh Badhi, a political scientist with the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. "It is more like 98 or 99 percent. The anger is boiling, to what end we do not know because it is all underground." Many middle-aged, educated Saudis say they are worried about the implications of the mutual alienation. Despite policy and cultural differences, Saudi-U.S. relations have been fortified over the years by a Saudi upper class that studied in the United States and appreciates its freedoms. Many young people say they have become politicized at a far earlier age than their parents, and their first political memories are of an America that throws its weight around at the expense of Arab interests. "It tells you how the future feels," said Thurayaa Arrayed, a consultant with the Arabian-American Oil Co. (Aramco), who studied in the United States and sent three of her four children to study at Ivy League colleges. "It's fine for people like us who grew up seeing Americans as friends, allies, people you look up to and a system that seems ideal. It feels now like it's all gone down the drain." On the surface, Saudi Arabia has been quiet while the rest of the Arab world has taken its anger to the streets. All public demonstrations here are prohibited. Privately, however, Saudis are intently focused on the war's progress. So many Saudis are glued to their television sets that merchants report business is suffering. Saudis are signaling their displeasure discreetly. Mobile phones ring with text messages of crude jokes about President Bush and prayers for God to destroy the U.S. military. People interviewed here said that at their prayers five times a day, they are seeking divine intervention to smash the U.S. military in Iraq. Copies of a prayer against the United States have been handed out on street corners over the past few days, asking God to wreak vengeance on U.S. soldiers. "Oh God, defeat the infidels," it reads in part. "Oh God, shake the ground under their feet, cast fear into their hearts and split their ranks. Oh God, send a whirlwind to destroy their planes and their ships." "The United States is almost an antagonistic society now," said a Saudi intellectual who studied in the Midwest and did not want to be identified. "The American people have shown themselves unwilling to be citizens of the world. My son is 15. He will not study in the States. 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