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.
The Nazis were "them" and we are "us."
No I think the people actually killing Jews are more like the Nazis.
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Correct. The arab states actually allied themselves with the Nazis durign WWII, their leaders made visits to Germany and they recieved weapons, training etc... from Germany. And hate mongering. The Germans went down in flames, the Arabs kept their hateful ideology and became socialists, turning to Moscow for backing. Before WWII and the creation of Israel, the arabs were a relatively tolerant people with considerable numbers of jews and christians living relatively peaceably across the middle east.
From what I have seen in France and Germany the past few years on my trips there, CNN International, which is Left of CNN, is way to the RIGHT of the BBC and the European media in general. So I think the problem is even worse than you imply -- but you see them every day and maybe it isn't as bad as I think.
1. Hitler had his "final solution."
2. Islam has the hadeeths that tells its followers the Day of Judgement will not begin until they kill all the Jews.
The allies of WWII stopped the former.
The IDF stops that latter.
Most French were happy and content with their Vichy government and were extremely "annoyed" that Americans and Brits invaded their country.
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Let's not go too far. Have you seen pictures of Paris as the Americans entered? It was the most jubulent, joyful town you could ever imagine. Too bad De Gaule and Chirac quickly forgot. I liked Mitterend (sp).
"Germans equate IDF with Nazi army"
They are still just hating on the Jews. Nothing more.
And from what I have seen concerning Europe lately I wish we could get some of Gen. George S. Patton's DNA and clone him!
In fact a lot of the resistance were French communists who were allied with Stalin and thus only began causing mischief when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Heck some of those commies helped the Germans invade their own country in 1940 when Hitler and Stalin were allies.
Least of all let's not forget the French who fired on American soldiers during Operation Torch.
"but you see them every day and maybe it isn't as bad as I think."
There is that - I do watch their programs showing "ordinary" people trying to cope with their present situations and they don't seem all that different than our Red State people.
Apparently they have lost control of their governments as we seem to be experiencing where judges legislate.
They did do a good job of taking care of the Nazis in their zone of occupation. Still it would have not been in our interest to have the Soviet empire extended to the Rhine.
Sadly the numbers would be close.
Everything you say is exactly right. In fact, Communism was one of our biggest worries at that time.
Himmler actually recruited Bosnian Muslims into the Waffen SS near the end of the war.
There was a pro-Axis coup in Iraq that fortunately the British were able to put down.
With this kind of attitude armed conflict between Germany (EU) and Israel may be inevitable in the not too distant future.
"In the end we are all humans and have hearts of darkness."
Agree but, some are darker than others. Furthermore, the French, throughout history, have always done what was in their interest and not in the world's interest.
Their behavior following WWI set the stage for WWII that was predicted even then by perceptive people.
I think the French didn't like being occupied by the Germans but they weren't as willing to risk their lives to drive them out as other nations were.
Imagine Patton giving briefings to today's press!! You'd have to do it with a five second delay!!
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