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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (50728)	10/10/2002 8:44:10 AM
From: zonder	Respond to of 281500

Re: "The EC agreed to support the Arab anti-Israeli policy in exchange for wide commercial agreements." Looking at the past and also looking at current events, I do not feel there is an "anti-Israeli" policy in EU (nor EC), but rather a sporadic reaction whenever they see a human rights problem in Israel's handling of the Palestinian minority under their governance (or outside it, at times), such as the bomb that was dropped on a Palestinian guy's home, that also vaporized several women and quite a few children. This sort of thing is unacceptable for the European public, and they have and will again react to it on grounds of objection to brutality and not anti-Semitism per se. Let me also point out that if such an agreement (oil for anti-Semitist support) were in place, we would expect to see politicians' opposing Israel's policies and the public disagreeing. In fact, the very opposite is taking place - Germany's recently elected head Schroeder got elected by recognizing this reaction in the public and promising before the election that no way would Germany support invasion of Iraq if he were elected. In the UK, Blair has a very small base of support for his siding with the US administration on the Iraq issue. I was in London two weeks ago, and was surprised by the public attendance in and the favourable media coverage of the anti-war protests that practically paralized the city for a day. > "Anti-Semitism" being stronger in Europe than America As I have mentioned before, I feel it is a common error on the part of the American and Jewish communities to conclude that any criticism of the current US administration or the current Israeli government is, respectively, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. Granted that there are those who last out at both countries from a base of fundamental hatred, they are not the majority in the surge of criticism you are witnessing these days. As someone living in Europe (there is a synagogue not 20 feet from my home, actually) I cannot agree that I see anti-Semitism on the rise. What is on the rise, incidentally, is anti-immigration sentiment especially against people with African origin. Higher crime accredited to these immigrants is the most important reason for this almost racist attitude that is currently on the rise in Europe, as validated by the rise in public support to far-right leaders like Le Pen in France. So, rest assured, whatever hatred there is against minorities right now in Europe is not against the Jewish. It is against immigrants, mostly those of African descent and Muslim religion. Europeans' criticism of Israel can hardly be categorised as anti-Semitist. It has more to do with their perception of inhuman treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli state, which, they feel, should come up with some other solution to the suicide bombings as a responsible state than demolishing whole towns and bombing children in their sleep.