Posted on 12/07/2004 2:14:35 PM PST by Alouette
Six decades after the mass extermination of six million Jews in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany, more than 50 percent of Germans believe that Israel's present-day treatment of the Palestinians is similar to what the Nazis did to the Jews during World War II, a German survey released this weekend shows.
51 percent of respondents said that there is not much of a difference between what Israel is doing to the Palestinians today and what the Nazis did to the Jews during the Holocaust, compared to 49% who disagreed with such a comparison, according to the poll carried out by Germany's University of Bielefeld.
The survey also found that 68 percent of Germans believe that Israel is waging a "war of extermination" against the Palestinians, while some 32% disagreed with such a statement.
In a first reaction, the chairman of Yad Vashem's directorate Avner Shalev said Tuesday that the poll's results, which he termed "very worrisome," were indicative of a long-suppressed felling of anti-Semitism among the mainstream "so-called liberals" population which now, under the coating of anti-Israeli criticism, are becoming legitimate again. He added that the poll's results, which he said any objective person would repudiate, are also the result of the release of pent-up feelings of guilt built up from the Holocaust.
"The energies which bring about such answers come to protect feelings of guilt," Shalev said. 62 percent of respondents in the poll said that they were sick of "all this harping" of German crimes against Jews, while 68% said that they found it "annoying" that Germans today are still held to blame for Nazi crimes against Jews.
The survey, which aimed to determine what is "the cut off point" between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism, finds that while "classical" anti-Semitism in Germany is on the wane, secondary anti-Semitism, often couched in anti-Israel views are on the rise, especially among the Left.
The German researchers who conducted the polls conceded that the results showing a majority of Germans equating Israel's Policy with Nazi Atrocities "may be worrying," but concurred with Yad Vashem's Shalev that the media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinians conflict has made such analogies part of the public discourse.
"When you see an image in the newspaper, in a caricature, which is repeated day in and day out that Sharon is equal to Hitler than the image catches in your head because maybe you do not like Jews so much or maybe you hate Jews, and than this works out excellent," Shalev said, stressing that education of the young generation was the key to stemming such a tide.
In the survey, 82 percent of the respondents polled said that they are angered by the way Israel is treating the Palestinians, while 45 percent of those polled said that considering Israel's policies it was "no surprise" that people were against them.
The telephone poll of 3000 "non-migrant" respondents, which was taken in May and June, did not come with a margin of error.
"This is a very sad commentary about what is happening in Europe today which needs to send a very strong warning signal about how much work needed to be done to deal with these attitudes," said, Dr. Ephraim Zuroff, the Israel director of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Due in part to its blighted history, Germany is generally considered to be one of the more supportive countries of Israel in Europe.
Israel probably wouldn't be around again yet if it weren't for the Germans. For God's sake, the Jews left Germany and the Germans still have a problem with them!
Chamberlain. A hero of the modern Democratic party.
Fifty-one percent of Germans are desperate to rationalize what Papa did in the war by comparing it to the valiant self-defense of the IDF.
"Germany was supposed to get hit according to what I read. "
There really wasn't much left to bomb . . . the targets had all been hit numerous times . . .
[so it would have been a waste of a perfectly good bomb].
Yes, Germans were wasted towards the end. Hitler wanted Germany to go down with him. He wasted no effort trying to save his troops, his cities, etc.
Well, you know, drug addicted dictators with absolute power are known for their pragmatic approach to problems.
Red6
:)
My sister knew this German exchange student in college. Let's just say he had a "different" take on World War II. He actually tried to sell me on the Poland attacked Germany first line.
Very true. That whole Operation Watch on the Rhine worked out very well for the Reich.
I think Allied pilots flew around Germany in 1945 just looking for targets.
Scary thing to me is that it means they aren't teaching the kids what happened back then. I think the Germans today are just as racist and antisemitic as they were in Hitler's day but they don't have any jews left to oppress. But then, no one has surveyed me.
"whereas the "Palestinians" aren't from Israel, but rather Jordan, Syria, the UAR, etc., and went to Israel at the urging of those countries"
They left other countries to sit in a refugee camp? You can't be serious; most Palestinians have roots in Palestine that are much deeper than the Jewish settlers.
Ever wonder why the attacks HAVEN'T been happening in Germany and France? Parc-ce qu'ils sont collaborateurs! Ils sont des cochons. Je leur deteste.
With respect, the number is far higher. The estimates for fatalities in the death camps is 11-13 million. Innocent civilians killed as combat rolled through and/or cities were bombed, etc., perhaps another six million. That's just off the top of my head.
The French resistance was a myth (after DeGaulle's intitial military resistance). American and British troops were shocked at the pace and quality of life in France when they landed; they realized these people had been living comfortably (at least in the Normandy zone). They had believed the "evil Hun invading France" cr@p even more than their fathers had 30 years before...
Japan had it's share of bombing too.
But I think an A-bomb is somewhat demoralizing to have go off over your city. It is if nothing else a demonstration of what more can follow if you don’t choose to change direction.
Red6
Who cares.
It's the freaking germans for crying out loud.
LOL! Loooooossssssseeeeeeerrrrrrssssssssss...
Actually, from my experience they are equal opportunity haters.
I wasn't in the country a full day before I had an, atleast, partial list of everyone they disliked. Northern Germans hate Southern Germans. They hate the Poles (all Polish women are apparently hookers and they are responsible for all the crime, did you know that?), they hate the Turks, they hate us....
And then you'd turn around and spout some hateful anti-Jew rhetoric so you sounded just like your grandpa, and anybody in the world with a lick of common sense would know you Germans hadn't changed. You hadn't wised up. You were just waiting for another chance. Germany can go to hell. And take Frenchy with them.
At least Stalin understood retribution. Something these candy-assed racists in the west will never understand.
Since we're in the realm of "what if's", in that case we could have let Patton had his way with the Soviets after the Soviets finished with the Germans! ;-)
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