60% of europeans think Israel is most dangerous country in the world

[phoenix_night]

Originally posted by leha
I do understand what people trying to explain me here , but problem is , when I was child in Russia , I failed to understand why other kids called me "jewish face" and refused to play with me . May be they thought I represent a danger to their happiness ?? May be they were afraid that one day I'll turn them into lepers ?? They were like 100% if you make a poll .

Not be insensitive, but what does that have to do with it?

 

[Phantom Lord]

One major problem is to draw the line between race and religion here. "Jewish face" is clearly racist, I personally consider a jew a member of a religion and besides that a human being like everyone else.

"Anti-Semitism" therefore is nonsense by definition to me.

Leha, I'd like to know your opinion about this - what do you identify yourself with? State, religion, race (and I mean this word in a positive, non-discriminating way, eg why shouldn't a person with dark skin be proud of her / his dark skin?)?

 

[Hitro]

Originally posted by leha
I think this poll should be taken very seriously and people much smarter than me and you take it seriously right now . Why ?

First, tell me about how you can know who is smarter than me.
Second, tell me what people you mean when it comes to taking it seriously.
Third, I was referring to the scientific part of the poll, people much smarter than you in that area will tell you that it's not all rock-hard facts.

But most importantly, instead of all my explanations both for this poll as well as for generalizations you picked this sidenote as the only quote and continue to spread the view I clearly countered without even adressing it. Why?

 

[Leha]

Originally posted by Phantom Lord
One major problem is to draw the line between race and religion here. "Jewish face" is clearly racist, I personally consider a jew a member of a religion and besides that a human being like everyone else.

"Anti-Semitism" therefore is nonsense by definition to me.

Leha, I'd like to know your opinion about this - what do you identify yourself with? State, religion, race (and I mean this word in a positive, non-discriminating way, eg why shouldn't a person with dark skin be proud of her / his dark skin?)?

I'm atheist and I'm not proud of being jew . I'm just jew , that's all about it . but to understand what it feels like to be discriminated , you should be discriminated , otherwise we are talking in different languages . I'm just simple man . Like everybody else , and I like my country , i'm sure it is one of best countries in the world , especially for jews . And when people in europe start being afraid of ME , it reminds me of my childhood .

 

[Phantom Lord]

I've lived in a foreign country too, but wasn't discriminated beyond the point of being a foreigner with fewer rights than a native.

Anyway, how do you define the term "jew"? Because, without a definition of the term, we can't define anti-semitism.

 

[Leha]

Originally posted by Hitro

First, tell me about how you can know who is smarter than me.
Second, tell me what people you mean when it comes to taking it seriously.
Third, I was referring to the scientific part of the poll, people much smarter than you in that area will tell you that it's not all rock-hard facts.

But most importantly, instead of all my explanations both for this poll as well as for generalizations you picked this sidenote as the only quote and continue to spread the view I clearly countered without even adressing it. Why?

I just explained you why such polls should be taken seriously .
You may disagree , of course . Sorry for my words when I said " people smarter than me and you " . I just ment by that people smarter than ordinary people . I in no way intended to offend your smartness.

 

[Hitro]

Well, I didn't mean to say that the results, if taken as solid facts, are not worth being discussed, no matter if I agree with your interpretation or not.
What I meant when saying "aside from the fact that polls like that shouldn't be taken too seriously" was that they don't give solid facts. Some of the inaccuracies are mentioned in the article, like the bias towards smaller countries. It was merely a sidenote referring to that point about such polls in general, I didn't say that the topic is irrelevant or shouldn't be taken seriously.

 

[phoenix_night]

leha, I don't see what your childhood has to do with it. You may have had a hard time, but when you come on here posting a thread with the intention of Euro-bashing*, the word "hypocrite" comes to mind.


*To think of Israel as a threat to world peace is perfectly valid. The region hardly knows peace and Israel is certainly the most powerful state in the area. Take that, the tensions with neighbouring states and the provocation from terrorism, and it's not hard to see why people would perceive Israel as a threat to world peace. You bring up North Korea, and call Israel a democracy, but that has little to do with it. I don't think many people expect North Korea to start a war at this moment in time; that may be different where Israel is concerned. There's no reason to discuss anti-semitism in this thread, unless you want a chance to bash Europe.

 

[Yaniv]

First off, I'm an Israeli.


To me, it seems ridiculous that any European would feel threatened by an Israeli aggression againt them, rather than countries such as North Korea, Iran or "Former" Iraq.


The question which was asked, however is very unclear:
"Tell me if in your opinion it (Israel)presents or not a threat to peace in the world."

Again, I doubt any European would feel threatened by Israel.
It is quite reasonable though, that people would see the situation in Israel escalate even further and turn into WW3, thus harming world peace. Even if any Europe nations would be involved in such a war, I doubt Israel would provide athreat to them.

 

[Leha]

Originally posted by phoenix_night
leha, I don't see what your childhood has to do with it. You may have had a hard time, but when you come on here posting a thread with the intention of Euro-bashing*, the word "hypocrite" comes to mind.


*To think of Israel as a threat to world peace is perfectly valid. The region hardly knows peace and Israel is certainly the most powerful state in the area. Take that, the tensions with neighbouring states and the provocation from terrorism, and it's not hard to see why people would perceive Israel as a threat to world peace. You bring up North Korea, and call Israel a democracy, but that has little to do with it. I don't think many people expect North Korea to start a war at this moment in time; that may be different where Israel is concerned. There's no reason to discuss anti-semitism in this thread, unless you want a chance to bash Europe.

phoenix_night , read all my previous posts in this thread and then , I hope , you'll understand why I brought my examples here . I'm sorry , but I can't re-write all I've written especially for you . If you have some more specific question , please ask , I'll try to answer your questions .

Edit : all this logic " Israel is constantly attacked , so sometimes it will counterattack - ergo ,Israel is a big threat " is totally false . It is like saying " in 1941 Germany attacked USSR , USSR destroyed German army -- ergo , USSR is a big threat to world peace " .

 

[samildanach]

It really depends on which other countries are on the list that people were expected to choose from. If Israel is the only state with nukes on the list then it should follow that they are the biggest threat to world peace. The others named so far - NK, Iran and Afghanistan don't have nukes and are only percieved to be threats to regional stability. If the U.K. and U.S.A are on the list (to name two other interventionist nuclear powers) then I think you would be right in concluding that the results of this poll reflect growing anti-semitism in Europe. If it lists countries like Canada and the Congo then I think you can put your paranoia monkey back in its cage.

 

[Leha]

deleted

 

[Akbar]

Originally posted by leha


" in 1941 Germany attacked USSR , USSR destroyed German army -- ergo , USSR is a big threat to world peace " .

Wasn't that the exact perception in the west at the time ?

 

[Dr. Dr. Doktor]

Is Israel a danger to? No. Is Sharon and his Likud government a threat to peace? Yes. A country can't be a threat. It is the people who rule that country who reperesent the danger. Then of course Israel is a democracy and some might say it is a moot point. Howver what I know from how politics works in my own country the population can be manipulated in so many ways. For instance by willfully making the economy worse. Destroying people's income trough inflationary measures.

Another thing that worries me is that in the recent municipal elections in Israel only 40 percent took their time to vote. That seems to indicate that a lot of Israelis are simply tired of politics.

Regarding anti-semitism it is usually the result of religious bigotry. The Nazis, because they did not believe in religion, then latched on to the idea that saying that Jews were a particular race would be more convincing to scientificially and modern minded people. The kind of anti-semitism one sees today I believe is mostly done by a very small minority of angry Muslims. They hate the Jews because they feel that they are somehow responsible for what is going on in Palestine. However I feel that the conflict between the Arabs and the Iranians on the one side and the Jews on the other is basically a secular struggle. Both sides use religion to bash eachother and bolster their beliefs in themselves. If you look at the Palestinians it is clear to me that they are nationalists. I simply cannot understand why it contrary to all evidence is so important to people to make a secular conflict into a religious one.
If you look at the orthodox Jews in israel many are very much against what the Sharon government is doing. For instance they would like to see tighter immigration laws. Howver Sharon is secular. Whether the immigrants can prove they are Jews is of no matter to him.
Now if one looks at the conflict from an economic and political perspective then Israels position certainly looks questionable. Therefore it might be tempting to bring religion into the matter. We saw the same thing in the balcans with the rise of Serbian natioanalism. The Serbs because they had weak arguments began to refer to how they had always been the Christian bulwark against Muslim invasions. How they were the only culturally enlightened people in the Balkans. how the Muslims were inferior in all matters and so on. This served to justify the economic exploitaion by the Serbian 'master-race' over the muslim masses.

Also any enlightened person will quickly percieve that racism against people from Muslim countries far supercedes the racism against Jews. In fact it is my belief that if there were again to be a rise of european Fascism the people going to the death-camps would then be the Muslims. The hatred in far right circles is simply too great to exclude that from happening.

 

[SanPellegrino]

leha, I don't want to be picky, but commas and full stops are set right after the word without a blank. I wouldn't care, but somehow it makes your posts difficult to read.

 

[phoenix_night]

Originally posted by Yaniv
First off, I'm an Israeli.

To me, it seems ridiculous that any European would feel threatened by an Israeli aggression againt them, rather than countries such as North Korea, Iran or "Former" Iraq.

The poll didn't say that, it asked which country was a greater threat to world peace, not Europe.

 

[phoenix_night]

Originally posted by SanPellegrino
leha, I don't want to be picky, but commas and full stops are set right after the word without a blank. I wouldn't care, but somehow it makes your posts difficult to read.

Seconded.

 

[phoenix_night]

Originally posted by leha
phoenix_night , read all my previous posts in this thread and then , I hope , you'll understand why I brought my examples here . I'm sorry , but I can't re-write all I've written especially for you . If you have some more specific question , please ask , I'll try to answer your questions .

I've read the whole thread, I had before posting.

I see no reason for any questions about anti-semitism in Europe to be raised as a result of this poll. Why? There are none.

Enough of the Euro bashing!

Seriously, you can call people anti-semitic all you like, though it's not very nice and I doubt people will take well to it; but in pointing the finger at every European, you really do seem rather hypocritical.

 

[The Yankee]

I'm a little tired of people accusing everyone else of anti-Semetism. There are some Israeli policies that raise quite a few eyebrows, especially in Europe.

Besides, aren't there Semites that aren't Jews?

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

Yeah, well the Jews did a number on them, as ordered by Jehova through Moses Deuteronomy and Numbers and all that.