[adunnyByday]

2/10

US is just big, and people hate big.
Israel gets a lot of bad rap for what most often is self-defense.

NK? Who gives a fcuk.

[Forexampleee]

It's a crap survey. Not saying this because they rate Israel as hated (no surprise there), but because they talk about the EU as one entity. In a BBC survey no less, I wouldn't expect that from the Brits. The EU doesn't even have a single foreign policy, gee, how can you rate its positive or negative "influence" as a whole?

[xtrslots]

Originally posted by Winston

Israel is in my personal top 3 of most admired countries in the world. All of its immediate neighbours, however, rank very near the bottom of the list. Oh wait, that's probably racist.. Blimey.

[WrigleyMike]

-Arrian

[iceleliewBync]

[Gabbavnf]

Originally posted by Winston
Most people are ignorant and uninformed when it comes to foreign affairs matters. Indeed, those Nigerians don't have a clue!

[HootSnori]

Apart from the fact that the creation of the state of Israel by a bunch of land-grabbing Zionists was an attack on the sovereignty of the people who lived there and violently evicted from their homes in the first place...

[smokeberly]

I see old habits die hard.

(see the German stat. )

[Corryikilelet]

[Calluffence]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
Apart from the fact that the creation of the state of Israel by a bunch of land-grabbing Zionists was an attack on the sovereignty of the people who lived there and violently evicted from their homes in the first place... There was no sovereign state though, just a province of an empire.

[aaaaaaaabbbby]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


There was no sovereign state though, just a province of an empire. Nitpicking. (but I'm glad you acknowledge my other points regarding Israel's unprovoked attacks of its neighbours by failing to address them. )

As a backwater province of a far-flung empire I am sure they enjoyed considerable autonomy. Certainly the empire also followed the same religious beliefs as its subjects' instead of having the views of a foreign religion imposed upon them.

[Clilmence]

[TiepayWrary]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


There was no sovereign state though, just a province of an empire. Nice justification for ethnic cleansing.

Meanwhile the Serbs get bombed by NATO for doing 1/100th what Israel did. And the Serbs were fighting a war within their own borders.

And let me make this perfectly clear again so the mouth breathers don't misinterpret my statements. My problem is with the hypocrisy within the international system. I show no support for either Israel, Serbia, or anyone else. I'm merely bashing the hypocrisy.

One can't call what one country does "ethnic cleansing" and then call the same thing "fighting terrorism" when another country does it. Sorry... but that's bullshit.

Not to say the Palestinians haven't perpetrated their own acts of violence, but Israel's atrocities in the last 60 years go far beyond what the Serbs are responsible for.

That's all.

Let the bullshit continue.

[StarsWorld]

Originally posted by Sava


Nice justification for ethnic cleansing. You keep referring to Zionist ethnic cleansing without providing a date for it. Without that, its not possible to tell what you are referring to, and how that relates to any alleged hypocrisy.

[freddyujnf]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
Personally I blame the UK and its stupid Balfour Declaration made in haste during WWI to destabilise the Ottomans almost as much as the opportunism of the Zionists... I blame Europe in general.

Europe

That's why everyone hates Israel now. They all realize their collective guilt with regards to the history of colonialism. But instead of taking responsibility for the state of the world, they want to point the finger at everyone else. American administrations are trying to handle things as best they can, but it's hard to lead all by oneself. Bush is far from a perfect leader. But even taking Bush into account, European countries are acting like spoiled children ("screw you, I'm going home!") and whining about the situation instead of trying to work with the stubborn American leadership.

It's so much easier to blame America for the world's problems. Meanwhile, each country ignores serious issues and looks after their own interests. The Bush administration may be screwing things up with their policies, but nobody else is trying to work with them. Sometimes it takes a better person to just bite the bullet and work with a stubborn, arrogant administration for the sake of the greater good.

If the state of the world is going to rest on the shoulders of how competent the American president is... well... the world is ****ed. Europe has to step up and lead (even if that means dealing with a terrible US president), not sit around with their thumbs up their asses crying like a bunch of babies.

[LeslieMoran]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I believe this tells us more about perceptions and propaganda than anything else. I'm not sure at all.

If you look at the figures for the Germans, you can be sure as hell it's not the propaganda. Or the propaganda has a dramatically counterproductive effect.

The German establishment simply cannot allow itself to look even remotely anti-Israeli. The German Jewish associations have conviced the establishment that a hint of anti-Israelism is already antisemitism, and this kind of argument obviously goes far in Germany.

As a result, the German establishment can hardly criticize Israel. And we see the backlash in the population


Edit: the figures for France and the UK are also nearly identical. However, I've yet to see your country being lambasted for its rampant anti-zionism and even antisemitism (something I've heard countless times about France, in the mouth of Yanks and Israelis)

[liontutuxx]

Originally posted by Spiffor
As a result, the German establishment can hardly criticize Israel. And we see the backlash in the population While it's true that you see hardly open criticism towards Israel from the political establishment here, I'd say that for a long time much of the media coverage of the ME conflict was rather imbalanced (criticism towards Israel, but wrong doings of the other side often played no big role). It has changed in recent yrs IMO.

[AlexBrith]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
Personally I blame the UK and its stupid Balfour Declaration made in haste during WWI to destabilise the Ottomans almost as much as the opportunism of the Zionists... Very few people realise that the UK covertly supported the Arab League attacks on Israel in 1948, according to research done at the time by The Nation magazine.

[lopezsokero]

I agree that the creation of the state of Israel has no justification, but there is nothing that can be done about it which doesnt involve something terrible, so the state of Israel has to be accepted.

[geniusxs81]

Originally posted by Sava


1947-1949... specifically May 1948 - January 1949

Of 850,000 indigenous Palestinians (within the territory that would become the state of Israel) pre-1947, only 160,000 remained after 1949. Over 750,000 Palestinians (throughout the entire region) became refugees.

64 of 370 villages were wiped out.

"Plan D" The upper class fled, to avoid the fighting and intended to return. Some poorer ones fled in immitation of the upper class, and also expected to return. Some feared massacres, which, with one disputed exception, did not happen (in stark contrast to certain other cases of alleged ethnic cleansing) Some, it turns out were expelled from their homes by the Haganah. Notably the Arab community of Lod. However the very evidence that shows that the Haganah expelled them, shows that they did so to protect a supply line to Jerusalem from guerilla attack, not with an intention of changing the demographics of the eventual Jewish state. In at least some cases, Arabs expelled from their homes by the Hagana were sent to other places under the control of the Hagana. Even Benny Morris, the "post Zionist" historian who documented that Hagana expulsions did take place, does not think that the Palestinian flight was driven by a concerted plan for ethnic cleansing, but was the result of the conflict itself.


Now, you may well assert that the same is true of Kosovo. To determine if that is the case, wed have to look in detail at the acts of the Yugoslav Army, including the revelations of mass graves. But lets not confuse the history of Israel-Palestine.