Israel outraged as EU poll names it a threat to peace

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=1c5e3857d27ad9fc

Israel outraged as EU poll names it a threat to peace

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday November 2, 2003
The Observer

Israel has been described as the top threat to world peace, ahead of North Korea, Afghanistan and Iran, by an unpublished European Commission poll of 7,500 Europeans, sparking an international row.
The survey, conducted in October, of 500 people from each of the EU's member nations included a list of 15 countries with the question, 'tell me if in your opinion it presents or not a threat to peace in the world'. Israel was reportedly picked by 59 per cent of those interviewed.

The leaking of the results of the poll to El Pais and the International Herald Tribune has sparked a bitter row, with a major Jewish human rights and lobbying group, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, demanding that the EU be excluded from the Israel-Palestinian peace process and accusing Europe of suffering the worst outbreak of 'anti-semitism' since World War Two.

The results appear to be a mark of the widespread disapproval in Europe of the tactics employed by the government of Ariel Sharon during the present intifada.

more.....

Oh is this revealing! :bounce:

cannot own opinion!! Get over it!! :evilgrin:

Perhaps when people chose "Israel" they meant "Israel-Palestine". I mean whatever you think about Israel, that whole affair is pretty goddamned f*cked up.

. . . I think the people who took the poll know the difference.

...know the difference between a nation without an army (Palestine) and the world's fourth largest arms exporter (Israel).

of North Korea, Afghanistan and Iran...
wow...
anyone have a link to the poll itself?
I'm thinkin The US is up top....

You wouldn't hear it from the American press (gee, I wonder why...) but Israel has been known to brag that it has a nuclear first strike capability against Europe.

Threatening to incinerate people does not make them your friends.

When Falwell, Robertson, THE Daystar dummies and Helmet Head Paul and Racoon Face Jan Crouch urge Sicko Sharon to smite his enemies, well, what do you expect?

notice their warmongering? I guess they thought they could get away with their policies and if they screamed "anti-semite" often enough, people would not hold them responsible? What amazes me is the way that Americans keep funding these monsters!

If you walk like a duck, quack like a duck, well...
people might just think you're a duck.
In this case, a duck with rabies.

Why is it that some DUers protest the US
occupation of Iraq, which is militarily superior
to the Iraqi people, who are fighting back with
acts of suicide bombings and terrorists attack,
but not those of Israel?

BHN

:

presuming the US isn't one of the fifteen.

printed or mentioned about the corruption and violence in Israel, then it is an "open sewer" and everyone who does not bend over is "anti-semite". yadda yadda yadda..............

Last Update: 02/11/2003 23:57
Shalom says damning EU poll on Israel is not anti-Semitic
By Adar Primor, Haaretz Correspondent

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom rejected Sunday claims that a European Commission poll ranking Israel as "the greatest danger to world peace" was proof of European anti-Semitism.

Shalom said the poll, due out Monday but leaked over the weekend to the Spanish daily El Pais, reflects the over exposure of Israel in European media. "There's no comparing the amount of media exposure Israel gets in Europe compared to Iran or North Korea. The images broadcast from here have an impact, but we should not get exerted by it," he told Haaretz.

Shalom said a poll published a month ago in Europe showed a significant improvement in Israel's image in recent months. "But who cares about such polls? Even though the previous poll might even be more accurate than the current one, it ended up on the back pages of the papers. They prefer to give big headlines when the news about Israel is negative."

Shalom links the latest poll results to Europe's efforts - and particularly France's - to position itself as a counterweight to the U.S. "This isn't necessarily a matter of anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian; it's a much broader issue of expressing views different from the U.S., to establish itself as a power."

Shalom was asked about the Wiesenthal Center's call to throw the European Union out of the Quartet and deny it any role in Middle Eastern negotiations. "I don't want to clash with this or that institute, but I don't see things the extreme way they do," he said. "One need not dramatize every poll and there's no need for bile."

--snip--

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/356366.html

The nature of the new anti-Semitism is that everyone can now play at it — as long as it is cloaked in so-called progressive thinking, and identity politics.

Most of the rant is just that, rant. But what is fascinating is the reaction to this garbage. The new anti-semitism uses terms like war mongering, dangerous,profiteering, cabals, and "the Jews/Zionists/Israelis (interchangeable terms)."In other words it's all the fault of the Israelis/interchangeable with Zionist/Jews. Either under the thumb of the US or directing US policy. Take your choice.

Those who should search for objective truth,usually don't. To write a reasoned balanced account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not sell and calls out the lunatic fringe en masse.

These "journalists" encourage (through their cowardness) the EU to openly favor the dismantling of Israel as we know it by the merging of this uniquely democratic and liberal state with West Bank neighbors who have a horrific record of human-rights abuses, autocracy, and mass murder. Of course per usual they (EU) are practicing CYA look for demographic projection of population change in Europe because of the large Arab immigration into Europe.

Plus what is the value of the only democratic government in a sea of autocracy if its existence butts up against notions of third-world victimhood and causes so much difficulty for the so called Western intelligentsia? Still, few intellectuals are silly enough to dress up that insane idea under the pretext of a serious argument (an unhinged Vidal, Chomsky, or Said does not count). They are wrong, not totally stupid.

This fashionable anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism — especially among the self-called intellectuals of the new Left — reveals a deep-seated, scary pathology that is growing geometrically both in and outside the West. For a Europe filled with unassimilated immigrants, and deeply angry about the power and presence of the United States. Denegration of these two democracies provide momentary relief on the cheap. So expect that more crazy thoughts of Israel's destruction dressed up as peace plans (Geneva) will be as common as gravestone and synagogue smashing.

For the Muslim world that must confront the power of the patriarch, mullah, tribe, and autocrat if it is ever to share the freedom and prosperity of the rest of the world, the Israeli/Jews offer a much easier target. So expect even more raving madness as the misery of Islamic society grows and its state-run media hunker down amid widespread unrest. Anticipate, also, more sick posters at C-SPAN broadcast marches, more slips by reasonable writers, and more anti-Israeli denunciations from the "new-liberals."

Do not look for the Islamic community (or almost anyone else) to acknowledge that the United States, in little over a decade, freed Kuwait, saved most of the Bosnians and Kosovars, tried to feed Somalis, urged the Russians not to kill Chechnyans, belatedly ensured that no longer were Shiites and Kurds to be slaughtered in Iraq, spoke out against Kuwait's ethnic cleansing of a third of a million Palestinians. That is about as likely as the idea that Western Europeans will acknowledge their past salvation from Nazism and Soviet Communism, or be grateful for the role the United States plays to promote democracy in Panama, Haiti, the Balkans, or the Middle East.

It is so much easier to just blame Israel.


in part from

campus-beat-owner@jcpa.org

According to Rules for Posting in the Latest Breaking News Forum, discussion of Israeli/Palestinian issues is not permitted in the Latest Breaking News forum, and instead must be posted in the Israeli/Palestinian Affairs forum. If, however, the news item is primarily about U.S. policy in Israeli/Palestinian affairs, you may post it in the Latest Breaking News forum. This news item, however, is not primarily about U.S. policy. Therefore, I'm locking this thread.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation,
TahitiNut - DU moderator