75% of Isrealis believes EU treats Israel unfairly

[JohnLocke]

75% of population believes EU treats Israel unfairly
by Mazal Mualem -- Haaretz Correspondent
Thursday, March 11, 2004
--
Almost three-quarters of Israelis feel their country is treated unfairly by the European Union, which is also perceived as being pro-Palestinian, according to a survey conducted by the Dahaf Institute and commissioned by the institute's representation in Tel Aviv. The results of the poll were unveiled by the EU's ambassador to Israel, Giancarlo Chevallard at a press conference on Wednesday.
According to the poll, Israelis have a highly ambivalent attitude to the EU. On the one hand, 74 percent sees the EU as leaning toward the Palestinian side in the regional conflict, and yet, a majority of the Israeli public feels the government should apply to join the European Union.
The poll shows that 60 percent support the idea that Israel should apply for membership of the EU and 25 percent "tend to support" this idea. Chevallard stressed, however, that the idea is not currently being considered.
A significant proportion of the 997 people interviewed said they believe European anti-Semitism has been on the rise in recent years, and two-thirds even agreed with the statement that the EU's attitude toward Israel was "anti-Semitism disguised as moral principles."
Fully 75 percent said Israel's relations with the United States are more important than its relations with Europe.
(...)
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Read the rest here.

[_Jumper_]

1. So why do they want to join the EU?

?

[JohnLocke]

2. To reform it.

On edit: Or maybe they're just maschoistic. :shrug:

[kalian]

3. Boo-friggin-hooo.....

"too reform it"... I think they'll pass on that "offer".

[Jim Sagle]

4. The EU ain't nuthin' but shit. Reforming it would make it go poof!

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Flagg]

14. The EU ain't nuthin' but shit

shouldn't this be deleted as well ?

[brainshrub]

17. I imagine the European monarchies of the 1770's said the same of

that upstart Democracy on the other side of the Atlantic.

[TahitiNut]

18. Is that a bumper sticker?

Who'd buy a used car with something like that on the bumper? :silly:

[anti-NAFTA]

6. LOL. Yeah.

"Reform it" by giving PNAC some influence and maybe getting David Frum a new job? Because I think the European Union is handling the issue very well, and the alleged anti-Semitism of France is a lie perpetuated by Bush's media puppets to blast France for its foreign policy.

[GabysPoppy]

8. Which of these incidents are the result of the "bush media puppets"?

http://christianactionforisrael.org/antiholo/france.html

"According to Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior, there were 320 anti-Semitic incidents in France in 2001, or nearly one every day. In the first week of this year, there were three violent anti-Semitic attacks alone in France, including an assault on a synagogue in the Paris suburb of Goussainville, where a gang of thugs hurled rocks and firebombs, smashing the synagogue's windows and damaging the building. On December 30, vandals attacked Otzar Hatorah, a Jewish school in the southeastern Paris suburb of Creteil, with firebombs, two of which exploded and caused extensive damage to several classrooms. This incident came just two months after a Jewish elementary school in the southern city of Marseilles was attacked by arsonists, who burned down part of the school and then left graffiti reading "Death to the Jews.""

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\ForeignBureaus\archive\200303\FOR20030305f.html

Paris (CNSNews.com) - The French Minister of Education is undertaking a ten-point program to combat the rise of anti-Semitism in schools.

Education Minister Luc Ferry said in a press conference last week that the formation of ethnic communities among students has caused an increase in anti-Semitic incidents in France.

[anti-NAFTA]

9. Neither.

But the reporting fails to mention that the anti-Semitic is not institutional. It is coming from the Arabs, many of whom are illegals. And then there was how the media portrayed Jean Marie-Lepen, a bigoted man surely, as the second coming of Hitler while he was getting plenty of urban Jewish votes from people who were tired of the Arab gangs. I don't support Lepen, but saying that France is anti-Semitic is ridiculous. Oh, and Charles DeGaulle, arguably France's George Washington, led the French resistance to kick the Nazis out and built Israel's military up more than America did until Israel started to go haywire in 1967. Show some respect for France and don't spit on your benefactors.

edit: I should say OUR benefactors.

[Darranar]

10. Not really...

the anti-semitism is not only coming from the Arabs; it is coming from the Far Right as well, which is undergoing somewhat of a resurgance in Europe through their opposition to immigration.

The Arab gangs can cause a lot of trouble, but if anything will put the welfare of European Jews in serious danger, it would be the election of right-wing candidates like Lepen, a great many of whom are highly bigoted towards both Jews and Arabs.

[anti-NAFTA]

11. The far right poses no threats to Jews.

I was in France in April of 2002 campaigning for Jospin in a lower-class Jewish neighborhood of Paris. Many of the people I met avowed support of Lepen. If it weren't for them, who are more fearful of Arabs than probably any French gentiles, Lepen wouldn't have gotten where he did.

edit: And even if it did France as a governmental institution is not anti-Semitic. The leading parties, the UMP and the Socialists, are both dedicated to social progressivism and against racism.

[_Jumper_]

12. The main target of the far right in France are Arabs and Africans

Somehow that manages to never make the news while anti-Semitism, which is a much smaller problem than anti-Arab and anti-black sentiment, manages to become a major story. When will we see a US ambassador denounce anti-black or anti-Arab sentiment in France?

[Darranar]

13. That is true. n/t

[fiend]

15. I agree.

Yet for some reason the US media makes it look like the Arab gangs are supported by the French government like some Chirac-ist equivalent of the Nazi youth.

:pals:

[TahitiNut]

19. It's always interesting to me when I read such reports ...

... where the perpetrators are so accurately and confidently described. Great "journalism." Let's see, it was a "gang of thugs" in one incident, "vandals" in another incident, and "arsonists" in a third incident. So, I guess the perpetrators were all caught carrying membership cards? Or is that what they filled in under "Occupation" on their tax returns? (Is it at all possible that the people responsible for those acts have not yet been identified, charged, prosecuted, and convicted? Nawwww. Of course not.)
:silly:

I guess Fox isn't the only "fair and balanced" medium. :shrug:

[TahitiNut]

16. Color me perplexed.

I'm but a novice here, but it seems to me that this is politics of the Salvador Dali kind. As I naively look at the very history of modern Israel, I see a 'nation' whose very existence is premised on the notion that Jews could never be personally secure in a post-diaspora refuge of Europe and that a 'homeland' (gotta love mental processes infused with nationalistic memes) was needed -- or just an expedient? Heaven forbid such a 'homeland' actually be European, religiously neutral, or politically egalitarian, the old "separate but (sorta) equal" logic is pervasive. I guess it's convenient that global colonialism afforded the modern day Romans the power to carve up occupied lands -- after all, might makes right. (I've really never understood how division achieves unity, how separation serves cooperation, how war causes peace, or how a hierarchy of global ghettos serve anything.) I'm still trying to figure out how creating a large global ghetto is morally or ethically different from a plethora of ghettos scattered far and wide, no matter how many occupants willingly or even eagerly occupied them. It seems to me that the geographic concentration of some so-called ethnic group that correlates so congruently over history with the killing power of military weaponry is strangely convenient for those who might harbor some vision of some ultimate 'cleansing.' (NIMBY is probably most vehement when it comes to nuclear bombs -- too much damage to dismissively call it collateral, I guess.)

So much for random thoughts ... why should anyone consider it at all remarkable that those politically polarized by a mutual "good riddance" attitude wouldn't view one another as 'fair'?

Like I say, I'm just naive, I guess. :shrug: