Blog Post

AEIdeas

A November 2014 study from the Arab Opinion Index team of the Doha-based Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies finds that the vast majority of Syrian refugees have a negative view of ISIS, with 83% saying their view the group is “negative” or “negative to some extent.”

However, a disturbing subset of 13% of Syrian refugees say their view of ISIS is “positive” or “positive to some extent.”

Here is the chart:

Overall, 85% of Arabs across the Middle East have a negative view of ISIS, while 11% see them positively. The negative numbers for the region would be higher were they not skewed by the views of Palestinians, nearly a quarter of whom have a positive view of ISIS.

In Iraq, for example, 91% have a negative view of ISIS. In Lebanon, 99% view ISIS negatively.

The good news is that the vast majority of Syrian refugees dislike ISIS, and little wonder – many of them are victims fleeing its radical Islamic caliphate.

However, 13% is a significant level of support. Republicans have raised concerns about the ability of the Obama administration to vet Syrian refugees to make sure ISIS terrorists are not using the refugee flows to infiltrate terrorists into the country. But even if the vetting process were perfect, it does not account for the more than 1 in 10 refugees who may not be ISIS operatives, but are ISIS sympathizers – and thus potential ISIS recruits down the line.

How do you screen for that?