People en masse are generally not well-informed and in large part irrational. The West has had decades of support for Israel (whose existence has been detested

People en masse are generally not well-informed and in large part irrational. The West has had decades of support for Israel (whose existence has been detested by most of the ME since pre-inception) and the decades-long struggle for ME countries to obtain ownership of their oil resources while white guys were in the country getting rich off it created has created a powerful and lasting image embedded into the culture (not least aided by lots of opportunistic ME politicians drumming up anti-West sentiment for decades in the same manner Western ones drum up anti-immigrant sentiment). China is too new, even if they're actually a more appropriate target for wrongs committed in 2018-2019.