Osamah F. Khalil. America’s Dream Palace

The context for Salim Yaqub’s Imperfect Strangers: Americans, Arabs, and U.S.–Middle East Relations in the 1970s is U.S. engagement with the Arab world during a period bracketed by two calamities: Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination by a Palestinian in June 1968; and the massacre of Palestinians by the Falange at Sabra and Shatila in September 1982, for which Israel bore indirect responsibility. It is Yaqub’s argument, which his book carefully documents, that during this pivotal period, roughly coinciding with the decade of the 1970s, the presence of Americans and Arabs in each other’s lives and perceptions became inescapable. On the international front, the United States and much of Arab society were increasingly at odds; but on the domestic front, despite persistent stereotypes of Arabs in U.S. popular culture, Americans developed a less negative image of the Arab world. Ironically, Arab Americans and Muslim Americans—in part because of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and his role in the peace process—were also seen more favorably, becoming a permanent, if fractious, part of the American community.

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