This is a little old but remains very relavant. Walter Russell Mead spent five weeks earlier this year traveling thru the Middle East learning Why They Hate Us, Really.

Mead argues persuasively that at the root of the hatred isn't any of the usual suspects that we hear about from the demogogues, like Israel or "our freedom". Rather it is the Palestinians and how our government has handled their plight.

"The Palestinian issue is really what discredits the United States throughout the region," a senior Western diplomat with years of experience in the Middle East told me. Or, as one student after another put it after the university lectures I conducted across the region: "Why do Americans have to be so biased?"

I think it's safe to say that much of the widely popular European opposition to Bush's Iraq policy is rooted in those very same issues, or at least their perception of them. Mead continues,

America's Middle East policy is unnecessarily zero-sum. We can be more pro-Palestinian without being less pro-Israeli. Indeed, to the degree that American policies help create support for compromise among Palestinians, pro-Palestinian initiatives can help Israel too.

I'd say Mead is absolutely correct there. But, he doesn't account for xenophobia among Americans who have never stepped foot outside of North America. Nor does he take into consideration the politio-religious dogma of some Protestants that teaches that Israel has to defeat her Arab neighbors in order for end time events to proceed sufficiently for Christ to return. For Americans who believe that doctrine, working towards a peaceful settlement between Israel and the Palestinians would hinder the second coming of Christ. In my experience these folks are almost universally Conservative and very pro-GOP in the religious conservative sense of "GOP". Those same folks happen to be Bush's political base. Connect the dots...