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British trio combat anti-Americanism with education

By Seth Mandel
August 29, 2008 

As the year 1979 flashes across your television screen, the news anchor says ominously but matter-of-factly: "Tonight the Mediterranean Sea is full of boats of Jewish refugees fleeing for their lives. Earlier today, the poorly equipped and under-funded Israeli army was finally defeated, and Arab combined forces, with Soviet air cover, entered Tel-Aviv."

The fake news report is part of a video created by Tim Montgomerie and Peter Cuthbertson for their new Web site, America in the World (americaintheworld.com). After the news anchor's brisk report, a narrator gravely repeats the following words as they appear on the screen: "A world without America would be a world without Israel."

Montgomerie and Cutherbertson are active Conservative political personalities in Britain. The site is published by Stephan Shakespeare, and the three founded America in the World to combat anti-Americanism in Britain and around the world.

"Our hope is that when students, when academics, when journalists, when ordinary people Google anti-Americanism and phrases like that, we'll be one of the first places they come to, and they'll be able to get the other side of the argument from our briefings," Cuthbertson told The Jewish State in a phone interview.

He said there will be briefings on almost every issue of interest, including gun control, American foreign policy, and health care. The five categories of briefings on the site are: American Society, American Foreign Policy, anti-Americanism, What America Has Given the World, and Alternatives to America (China, the European Union, and the United Nations).

Later in the aforementioned video, as the year 1959 flashes across the screen, a news anchor says: "You are watching the news from London. General-Secretary Stalin was in France today to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the liberation of Paris by the Red Army. Organized crowds of young people sang the Soviet anthem as troops marched along the Champs Elysees."

And in 1969: "Latest data from the British Department of Health show that deaths from polio rose again last year. The hunt for a vaccine continues." In 1999: "At a Downing Street press conference earlier today, the British prime minister said that President Saddam Hussein was a man he could do business with. He was speaking after it was confirmed that the Revolutionary Republic of Iraq and Kuwait had acquired nuclear weapons."

The video was launched last year, and Montgomerie and Cuthbertson have been writing material for the site full-time. The organization is planning an official launch event in London in October, at which British Conservative Party leader David Cameron will be the guest of honor.

"All three of us really do feel strongly on this issue, and this is something that starting this May we really started putting together," Cuthbertson said.

The trio recently released the results of a survey taken in early August of more than 1,600 British adults on various matters of American culture and politics. The results even surprised Cuthbertson.

"When we found that so many people had these wrong impressions about the United States, and believed these negative statements, it really did strengthen our argument that this is actually quite big news," Cuthbertson said. "I think the coverage we've had has reflected that."

For example, 52 percent of respondents said that since World War II, in conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims the U.S. has more often sided with the non-Muslims. (In reality, of the 12 such conflicts in which the U.S. has taken a side, it sided with the Muslims in 11.) Forty-eight percent responded that in the U.S., it is more likely for a white student to be accepted to university than for a black student with the same academic qualifications, when in fact the reverse is true. Forty-six percent answered that the U.S. presidential election takes place once every five years, and 58 percent said that polygamy is legal in some parts of the country. (It is not legal anywhere in the U.S.)

Cuthbertson said the group started the site because they wanted there to be a factual resource to help the public form opinions of America based on reality, not rumor.

"My impression is Americans are quite aware of anti-Americanism, and they're also quite aware that it's not necessarily based in fact," he said. Anti-Americanism is just as often, Cuthbertson said, "based on misinformation and misleading impressions created by people like Michael Moore, I would say, as it is in actual understanding of the country. If we can provide the factual information that would allow people to come to a more informed view, that will certainly help with things."

The videos and briefings, he said, have been well received both in England and America. Many Americans see the site as a service to their country, and a much-needed voice on their behalf, he said.

"I think it also it triggered in our minds the idea that when it's people from other countries doing this -- when it's we who are making the arguments -- it gives that extra bit of credibility," Cuthbertson said. "Rightly or wrongly, people listen more; it's not Americans defending America."

And although both Cuthbertson and Montgomerie are active within Britain's Conservative political structure, Cuthbertson said the Web site in not representative of any particular partisan strand of thinking.

"This is something we really believe that people of all parties and of no party can get behind," he said.