Because of the title, the song has drawn controversy for what critics have described as promoting violence against Arabs, which songwriter Robert Smith pinned on the public's lack of knowledge regarding the novel.

Shortly after its release, Smith said, "It just happened that the main character in the book had actually killed an Arab, but it could have been a Scandinavian or an English bloke.

"[4] Songwriter Robert Smith said the song "was a short poetic attempt at condensing my impression of the key moments in the 1942 novel L'Étranger (The Stranger) by Albert Camus".

Music critic Ian Birch wrote: "As 'Hong Kong Garden' used a simple Oriental-styled riff to striking effect, so '[Killing An] Arab' conjures up edginess through a Moorish-flavour guitar pattern".

In the US, the Cure's first compilation of singles, Standing on a Beach (1986), was packaged with a sticker advising against racist usage of the song after a student DJ on WPRB Princeton offended listeners by insensitively introducing the track prior to playing it on the radio in October 1986.

[9] Robert Smith and Elektra Records requested that radio stations discontinue airing the song and saw the sticker as a compromise to prevent having to pull the album from sale entirely.