Shibley Telhami Speaks on Orlando, the Middle East, and the U.S. Election

By: Tara O'Herlihy, UNA-NCA Program Assistant

On July 11, 2016, Shibley Telhami, the Anwat Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and Nonresident Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution, presented his research on Orlando, the Middle East, and the U.S. election. Telhami examined the intersection of these topics through a series of polls conducted through the University of Maryland in November 2015, May 2016, and June 2016. These last two polls were done two weeks before the Orlando shooting and two weeks after the shooting.

The first part of the presentation was a summary of public opinion on Muslims and Islam. Favorability of Muslims has increased from 53% in November 2015 to 62% after the Orlando shooting. While the favorability of Islam is lower overall, it has increased from 37% to 44% over the same time period. However, when Telhami entered party affiliation, the numbers were very different between Republicans and Democrats. Most recently, favorability of Muslims was 42% and 79% among Republicans and Democrats, respectively. Similar partisan polarization occurred for favorability of Islam.

Telhami offered potential explanations for the increasing favorability of Muslims and Islam, which may be surprising to some in light of recent public rhetoric. The first possible reason is the more nuanced thinking that is evident in polling regarding the Orlando shooting. The most popularly perceived factors behind this and other shootings were  militant Islamic ideology and mental illness, while the least popular opinion - with only 2% support - was feeling rejected as a Muslim in America. Additionally, when asked about the  best way to prevent further attacks, people chose banning the sale of any weapons to people on terrorist and criminal watch lists, better security, and fighting ISIS abroad over monitoring Muslim communities in the U.S. These answers demonstrate a shift from associating all Muslims with terrorism to a nuanced perspective on the nature of terrorism in the U.S. Also, President Obama has been working to differentiate between the religion of militant extremist groups and Islam, which appears to be successful given this recent data.

After focusing on American views of U.S. issues, Telhami explored foreign policy issues in the Middle East in his November 2015 and May 2016 polls.  One of these areas was how the U.S. should respond to a UN Security Council proposal supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state. From November to May, support for abstaining from voting decreased while support for voting against the proposal increased. As of May, 27% were in favor of voting for, 35% supported voting against, and 35% wanted the U.S. to abstain from voting on the matter. This, similar to other issues, was split by party, with more Republicans supporting voting against the establishment and more Democrats supporting voting for the proposal.

We would like to thank Shibley Telhami and the University of Maryland for their research and presentation, and the sponsorship of The Brookings Institution, particularly Tamara Cofman Wittes for moderating the event and William Galston for participating in discussion after the presentation.