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USrael, biggest threat to World peace
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60 percent of all Europeans are staunch anti-Semites, Wiesenthal-Centre |
| euobserver.com - 30.10.2003 - 17:41 CET - http://www.euobserver.com/index.phtml?sid=9&aid=13324 | |||
| Poll controversy as Israel and
US labelled biggest threats to World peace
Written by Andrew Beatty
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Over half of Europeans think that Israel now presents the biggest threat to world peace according to a controversial poll requested by the European Commission. According to the same survey, Europeans believe the United States contributes the most to world instability along with Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and North Korea. The specially commissioned poll which asked citizens 15 questions on "the reconstruction of Iraq, the conflict in the Middle East and World peace", has caused controversy in Brussels. The European Commission is coming under fire for publishing the results of a number of questions - relating to Iraqi reconstruction - while failing to publish the results which revealed the extent of mistrust of Israel and the United States in Europe. A Commission spokesperson today (30 October) denied that the decision to withhold some of the results until next Monday was politically motivated, adding that some of the results not yet published are still "unstable". He did, however, add that a decision was made to publish a preview of the questions pertaining to the reconstruction of Iraq, to coincide with the Iraqi donors conference in Madrid, which took place at the end of last week. This admission has raised questions about whether the Commission sought to suppress the results which would have came at a particularly sensitive moment. One pollster involved in the survey told the EUobserver that some questions being raised about the poll were unfounded. "The questions were decided upon by both the polling organisations and the European Commission", the source said. Israeli officials dismissed the results of the poll as propaganda. According to El Pais, a massive 59 percent of Europeans said they believed that Israel is the biggest obstacle to world peace. The poll, conducted by Taylor Nelson Sofres/ EOS Gallup Europe, was conducted between 8 and 16 of October. <end euobserver> |
| Israel
outraged as EU poll names it a threat to peace
Israel has been described as the top threat to world peace, ahead of North Korea, Afghanistan and Iran, by an unpublished European Commission poll ... 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. ... Reacting to the poll, the Simon Wies enthal Centre, which claims 400,000 members in the US alone, has begun ordering a petition to condemn the European Commission and demand the EU no longer be represented in the so-called Quartet group trying to mediate an end to violence between Israel and Palestine. ... "This poll is an indication that Europeans have bought in, 'hook, line and sinker', to the vilification and demonisation campaign directed against the state of Israel and her supporters by European leaders and media," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Wiesenthal Centre's founder. "This shocking result that Israel is the greatest threat to world peace, bigger than North Korea and Iran, defies logic and is a racist flight of fantasy that only shows that anti-semitism is deeply embedded within European society, more then at any other period since the end of the war," he added. |
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The Observer, London, Sunday November 2, 2003 |
