On This Day

Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.

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8 October

best opinion pollEU APOLOGISES TO ISRAEL FOR CITIZENS' VIEWS
On this day in 2003 the European Union conducted a poll of each member country over a nine day period, which found 59% of Europeans believing Israel poses a threat to world peace. The EU’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini apologised to Israel on behalf of the EU for the views of EU citizens and promised Israel that EU citizens’ views on the subject would not be allowed to influence EU foreign policy. The poll found the more highly educated an EU citizen was, the more likely they were to see Israel as a threat to peace.

 

الاتحاد الأوروبي يعتذر لإسرائيل عن وجهات نظر مواطنيه

8 أكتوبر

في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 2003، أجرى الاتحاد الأوروبي استطلاعًا لكل الدول الاعضاء على مدى تسعة أيام، وكانت نتيجة الاستطلاع أن 59٪ من الأوروبيين يعتقدون أن إسرائيل تشكل تهديدًا للسلام العالمي. اعتذر وزير خارجية الاتحاد الأوروبي فرانكو فراتيني لإسرائيل نيابة عن الاتحاد الأوروبي عن وجهات نظر مواطني الاتحاد الأوروبي ووعد إسرائيل بأن آراء مواطني الاتحاد الأوروبي حول هذا الموضوع لن تؤثر على السياسة الخارجية للاتحاد الأوروبي. ووجد الاستطلاع أنه كلما كان مواطن الاتحاد الأوروبي أكثر تعليما، زاد احتمال رؤيته لإسرائيل على أنها تهديد للسلام.

The revelation of the state of EU public opinion was not supposed to happen
"In a Flash EuroBarmoter poll entitled “Iraq and Peace in the World” (Flash EB 151), the question to determine whether Israel constituted a threat to peace, in the 15 countries mentioned, had been slipped into the questionnaire. Some 59% of the 7,515 persons interviewed from the 15 EU Member States placed Israel at the top of the list. For second place, there was a tie between the United States, North Korea and Iran (53%), ahead of Iraq (52%). This ranking was relatively unex-pected, given the friendly relations that the European capitals wish to main-tain with Israel, and it puts public opinion and leaders in an awkward position.

Initially, the Commission had only published partial results relative to the war in Iraq, by ignoring the question that may have inconvenienced Israel and the United States, but it had not provided for the possibility of leaks. It was the Spanish newspaper El Pais that confirmed the existence of these questions in an editorial, placing Brussels, who was thus accused of censorship, in a difficult spot.

Israel voiced outrage over an EU-wide opinion poll that identified the country as the biggest threat to world peace. The Commission has acknowledged that Israel’s anger was “legitimate”.

Commission President Romano Prodi, visiting New York, said he was concerned at the findings...Israel said the survey, in which 59 percent of those polled said the country was a menace, revealed a "hidden agenda" by...the EU executive. Prodi stressed that the Eurobarometer survey did not reflect the views or policy of the European Commission. "They point to the continued existence of a bias that must be condemned out of hand. To the extent that this may indicate a deeper, more general prejudice against the Jewish world, our repugnance is even more radical," he declared.

"It is not our role or our policy to interpret each opinion poll or to base our policy on it," spokesman Gerassimos Thomas told the Commission's daily news briefing...He insisted the questions were set by low-level officials, not the Commission's political leaders or external relations directorate...

Israel's minister for diaspora affairs and Jerusalem, Natan Sharansky, said the survey showed that "behind the 'political' criticism of Israel lies nothing other than pure anti-Semitism."

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the poll was "conducted in an irresponsible manner and distorts reality," but rejected assertions it proved European anti-Semitism..."Foreign Minister Franco Frattini...expresses surprise and disappointment at the distorted message that emerges from the EU poll," a statement issued by his ministry said.

Friends of Israel: support for Israel has eroded dramatically on American campuses
Unwavering support for Israeli policy has eroded dramatically both on American college campuses and within the United States as a whole, according to a group of American university professors who on Sunday concluded an academic exchange program here, sponsored by the Yitzhak Rabin Center...
In BBC World Service annual opinion poll - Israeli hasbara had had lifted the apartheid state to second bottom by 2008.
"The mood in the United States is changing," said Richard Samuels, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of MIT's Center for International Studies. "And it's changing in ways that I think deserve a lot of attention, especially from an Israeli point of view.

Also in 2007 - and it has not got any better for the pro-Israeli lobby - Nation Branding reported the results of a major poll in which 25,000 consumers worldwide were asked their impressions of 36 different countries. Israel finished 36th, “at the bottom – by a wide margin”.

The following year the 'Jewish Telegraph Agency' reported the 2008 BBC poll results that raised Israel to second bottom position. Unpopularity contest: Iran first, Israel second.

"Israel was second only to Iran in a survey of the world's most unpopular nations. A BBC World Service annual survey of views on various countries found that the highest number of respondents, 54 percent, voiced negative views about Iran's influence on global affairs, with Israel next at 52 percent.