Posted on 11/03/2003 9:08:41 AM PST by yonif
The European Union said Monday a "misleading" survey in which more Europeans named Israel as a threat to world peace than any other country will not affect its Mideast policy.
Israel said the poll was more evidence of anti-Israel bias in Europe and considered sending a bombed-out bus to display in European cities to illustrate the impact of terrorism.
"Europeans seem blind to Israeli victims and suffering," said Haim Assaraf, the spokesman of the Israeli mission to the EU.
The EU poll, parts of which were leaked last week, found 59 percent of EU citizens said "yes" when asked if Israel posed "a threat to peace in the world." More than half _- 53 percent - also said "yes" to Iran, North Korea and the United States.
Eleven other countries on the list followed. The Palestinian Authority was not included because it is not considered a country, European Commission Gerassimos Thomas said.
The survey was conducted on behalf of the Commission, the EU's executive office in Brussels, but Thomas refused to interpret the results.
However the EU presidency, currently held by Italy, insisted that the survey did not reflect the EU's position on the Mideast conflict, adding it sends the world a "distorted signal."
"The result of the poll, which is the fruit of a misleading question, does not reflect the EU position as expressed by its institutional bodies on several occasions," said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini in Rome.
Many Israelis consider Europe to be biased against Israel, largely due to EU support for the Palestinians at the United Nations and other world forums during the past three years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. The EU has also refused to follow Israel and the United States in shunning Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
The EU denies it is anti-Israel, just as Washington rejects charges that it is anti-Arab. The EU, the United States, the United Nations and Russia are co-authors of the latest Mideast peace plan known as the road map.
At their summit last month, EU leaders strongly condemned terrorist attacks on Israel, insisted the Palestinian Authority must do more to control attacks on Israelis and recognized the right of Israel to protect its people from terrorism.
Assaraf called the poll results "sad and dangerous" and insisted EU citizens have a lopsided view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"Israel's desperate struggle for peace and security for its people has been distorted beyond recognition in often one-sided and emotionally charged media coverage," he said in a statement.
He accused the poll's authors of asking "biased questions ... to promote a hidden agenda," and said Europe should "do much more to enhance its dialogue with Israel."
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based Jewish group, said the EU should be excluded from the Mideast peace process.
The poll "shows that anti-Semitism is deeply embedded within European society, more now than in any other period since the end of World War II," said the human rights group's founder, Rabbi Marvin Hier.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry called a special meeting Sunday in reaction to the poll and is considering hiring a public relations firm to start a campaign for Israel in European countries, Israeli media reported.
Israel also is considering sending the skeleton of a bombed out bus to Europe for a tour of cities, Zeev Feiner, a spokesman for Israel's Disaster Victims Identification Unit, said in the Maariv newspaper.
"We hope that when people in Europe see the skeleton of the bombed out bus, they will realize that Israel is not the bad guy here and that victims of terrorism in Israel, Bali and everywhere else in the world, share a common fate," he was quoted as saying.
The telephone survey of 7,515 people was carried out Oct. 8-16 by 15 EOS Gallup Europe institutes. It has a margin of error of four percentage points.
Leaked reports last week said the survey had labeled Israel the "biggest" threat to world peace, but the poll never addressed such a gradation.
Citizens were able to choose as many of the 15 nations as threats to world peace as they wanted, and the final ranking was: Israel, Iran, North Korea, United States, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, China, India, Russia, Somalia and the EU itself.
On the Net:
Full survey, Iraq and Peace in the World: http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion/archives/flash_arch.htm
Not considered a country by the EU? That's the first time I have heard of that one....I always hear "Palestine" shouted here and there and the treatment of "Palestinian" officials as government officials.
What was misleading about it? Seemed pretty straightforward to me.
Look at this spin by the article's author. The obvious red herring is an attempt to distract from the poll's central point, which is Europe's rampant ant-semitism.
Iran, North Korea and the USA!
Why?
The people in Europe would only show up to dance and cheer.
Besides, per that article, we'd better not call them anti-Semites. President Chirac is quoted: "If you don’t stop [reporting that there is anti-Semitism], it will be bad for the Jews."
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based Jewish group, said the EU should be excluded from the Mideast peace process
good!
The European Union said Monday a "misleading" survey in which more Europeans named Israel as a threat to world peace than any other country will not affect its Mideast policy.
Of course the E.U.'s mideast policy has always been anti-israel so obviously the poll will change nothing
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