Guilty Arabs Innocent Americans

You may be accepted, provided that you follow our agenda; this statement represents the policy that the United States has frequently applied in its relationship with Arabs. However, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 have had a titanic negative impact on American policy toward Arabs, particularly Arab Muslims, more than ever. In the post-9/11 era, many cultural and political American intellectuals produce a myriad of antagonistic discourses on the nature of Islam and the temperaments of Arab Muslims. This cultural practice is defined, in the world of academia, as Neo-Orientalism, which is characterized by much more aggression toward Islam and Arab Muslims than traditional Orientalism. Affected by the dominant discourse of the age, different American intellectuals launch a culture war on Islam and Arab Muslims; they produce a massive number of discourses, focusing on defining Islam as the main threat to the West in general and the United States in particular, as well as misrepresenting Arab Muslims as violent terrorists. This book attempts to give a critical reading of the (mis)representation of Arab Muslims in the early, modern, and neo-Orientalist American cultural discourse.