Jakarta – A group of Indonesian Muslims, handpicked by the US Embassy here for their moderate views, told an expert panel from Washington in plain terms last week why America is unloved in the Islamic world.

The problem is policy, not public relations, said Ms Yenni Zannuba Wahid, 28, daughter of former president, Abdurrahman Wahid. Ms Wahid has been studying at Harvard university for the past year.

"There is no point in saying this is a problem of communication," she said after a videoconference with the advisory group on public diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim world.

The panel is to report to the White House and Congress tomorrow and has been asked to come up with some rapid solutions to anti-Americanism in the Muslim world.

"The perception in the Muslim world is that the problem is the policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iraq," said Ms Wahid. It would help to alleviate, but not close, the distance between the Muslim world and the US if Washington would explain its policy.

Another panelist criticised America's preoccupation with Islamic fundamentalists. "Every country has fundamentalists," said Muslim magazine publisher Zaki Mansoer. "I think Billy Graham Jr is a fundamentalist," he said of the Reverend Franklin Graham, who has called Islam "a very evil and wicked religion".

The dialogue with Indonesians was intended to give the panel a sample of opinion in the world's most populous Muslim country. America's standing was damaged most by the perception that the Indonesians the US 'picked on' were fundamentalist believers in Islam, the panel was told.

These people had a right to practise that form of their religion just as fundamentalist Christians did in America, Mr Mansoer said.