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How Should this Poll Be Read? | April 16, 2004

The Jerusalem Post carries an article in which Nathan Sharansky, and others comment on a recent poll in which 7.500 Europeans identified Israel as the greatest threat to world peace.

Sharansky describes the findings to reveal "pure anti-semitism," and Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center's founder and dean, has launched a web-based petition to call for the disqualification of the European Union from a role in Middle East Peace Talks.

But one must first ask about the exact wording in the poll. Is there a way of knowing which of two meanings were meant by the Europeans taking the poll? Do they mean to say that of all the countries in the world, the most bellicose, erratic, unstable, and militant is Israel? If so, the distemper of Mssrs. Sharansky and Hier is admissible. If on the other hand, the poll-response reflects the view that major international war in the world is more likely to erupt and have its origins surrounding the nation of Israel, then one could reasonably argue such a position.

Perhaps the irate Sharansky, Hier (and I’m sure countless others) already know the accurate meaning of the EU poll, (public figures ordinarily do not fulminate without checking matters first). If so, the poll is indeed a bell-weather pointing to a deeply problematic and seriously malformed continent in its political impulses.

If on the other hand, the Europeans polled suspect that large scale war could erupt more likely surrounding Israel, Palestine (and related furies) then they may well have answered insightfully on that particular part of the questionnaire.

Posted by admin at April 16, 2004 09:20 PM


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