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.
It is a German cultural trait. Unique to Germany as well as large parts of Europe.
The Germans will never forgive us for the memory of the Holocaust.
Man, you haven´t heard the shot, have you? There´s no German older than 16 who does not know what the Nazis have done to 6 million Jews between 1933 and ´45.
Germans are racist, eh? Ever listened to the comments about Hispanics on FR? Germans are even less racist than French or Brits, from my perceiption. And finally, don´t draw a line between respect for Jews and (dis-)respect for the Israeli government. Reports of shooting kids and pregnant women haven´t lead to a higher reputation of the IDF, sadly enough. That´s all I have to say for now.
I also forgot to mention the ovens.
Gosh, when WE start two world wars and slaughter 10 million innocent unarmed civilians and run countless slave-labor camps and declare ourselves the master race, then we might start to give a flying f__k what you stinking Krauts think. Now STFU and go back to your stupid socialist handwringing.
BTW: We are pulling our troops out of your faggy benighted dump of a country.
True although my brother said he never got so many hugs in his life as he did when he traveled through France during that war. Even today while he hates Chirac, he still has a fondness for the French people.
Wilson had good intentions but gave up because of the consistent recalcitrance of the French.
truth!!!!!
"1. German Jews were not going around blowing up trolley cars, beer halls and kindergartens in Germany.
2. The IDF is not conducting mass exterminations at the rate of several thousand per day."
Amen, Alouette!
Uh, no, the refugee camps were created after their original countries wouldn't allow them back in after the failed 1948 and 1967 wars. They went to Israel originally to live their under the false assumption that the Arab armies would make short work out of the fledgling state. Also, contrary to what our media wants you to believe, many of the "settlers" have been in their areas for a generation; the "settlements" are not squatter camps, but rather apartment buildings, neighborhoods, etc.
It was Palestinians who shot Tali Hatuel and her four little girls at point-blank range. You ignored that insignificant little detail.
Then how come that 51% of them think the Nazis did nothing more than the IDF is doing to "Palestinians" ?
I second your post...
Good intentions? Well, I guess it all turns out for the best when one has good intentions.
David fought the Philistines(the root of "Palestine")
So those Palestinian villages never existed?
All those Palestinian Arabs with keys around their necks just invented claims to the house to which the keys were used?
Repeating The Lie frequently will not make it so.
Oh please...
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