Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »

VIEW FROM AFAR . . . BEIRUT, JERUSALEM, RAMALLAH, GAZA:POLLS ACROSS the Middle East show Democrat Barack Obama would be elected by a landslide if people here were voting for the US president, writes Michael Jansen

In Lebanon, Obama would secure 45 per cent and Republican John McCain 18 per cent.

In the Palestinian territories, 37.3 per cent prefer Obama while 15.3 per cent support McCain - and 47 per cent like neither of them.

Tarif Khalidi, professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the American University of Beirut observed, "I would very much like to turn my back on the American election. The very fact that our fate hangs on a few American individuals is very upsetting.

Hopes pinned on them are invariably disappointed. Obama was a very good friend of Rashid [Khalidi, a cousin who assumed the Edward Said chair at Columbia University]. But Obama shed all his Arab and Muslim acquaintances."