EU poll places Israel as top threat to world peace
A leaked European Commission opinion poll has pinpointed Israel as the main threat to world peace.
On Monday, the European Commission publishes the main findings of the survey – “Iraq and peace in the world,” based on 7,500 responses from 15 EU member states.
But the EU said it was holding back the answers to five of the 15 questions due to “technical” difficulties.
The October survey, picked up by the International Herald Tribune, asked respondents to pick from a list of 15 those countries they considered a threat to world peace.
Almost 60 percent named Israel ahead of North Korea, Afghanistan and Iran.
In response, the influential Jewish human rights group, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, accused Europe of being riddled with anti-Semitism.
The campaign group has called for the EU – a partner in the Quartet of institutions (Russia, the UN and the US) backing the “road map” for peace in the Middle East to be excluded from further discussions.
“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
Separately, five Israeli soldiers were injured Sunday in an explosion in the West Bank town of Nablus.
One of those hurt is said to be in a serious condition.
The militant wing of Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, has claimed responsibility for the attack.
One of those hurt is said to be in a serious condition.
The militant wing of Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, has claimed responsibility for the attack.
