[LCM Articles] Fwd: An article for you from Michel Rbeiz.

Mon Aug 21 13:49:56 EDT 2006

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From: autoreply at economist.com <autoreply at economist.com>
Date: Aug 21, 2006 1:48 PM
Subject: An article for you from Michel Rbeiz.
To: mrbeiz at gmail.com

- AN ARTICLE FOR YOU, FROM ECONOMIST.COM -

Dear Michel,

Michel Rbeiz (mrbeiz at alum.mit.edu) wants you to see this article on
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TO ISRAEL WITH HATE--AND GUILT
Aug 17th 2006

Why Europe, unlike America, finds it so hard to love Israel

THE ugly little mid-summer war that has just ended in Lebanon spilled
over into the parliaments, streets, television studios and dinner
parties of Europe. By and large, Israel got the worst of it.

The Council of Europe said that Israel's response to Hizbullah's
cross-border attacks was "disproportionate" and accused Israel of
"indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets". Romano Prodi, Italy's
prime minister, called Israel's reaction "excessive". In Norway,
Jostein Gaarder, the author of "Sophie's World", accused Israel of
ethnic cleansing and murdering children, and said that the Jewish state
had forfeited its right to exist. In many capitals, anti-war protesters
marched under Hizbullah flags. When Britain's Tony Blair tried to
explain things from Israel's point of view--and failed to call for an
immediate ceasefire--his political stock took another tumble.

Mr Gaarder was prodded into a half-hearted apology. But the truth is
that, far from being extreme, these criticisms of Israel convey the
mood of millions of Europeans, rooted in what polls suggest is a
hardening attitude. A YouGov poll in Britain, taken in the first two
weeks of the conflict, found 63% of respondents saying that the Israeli
response to Hizbullah's attack was "disproportionate"; a similar German
poll had 75% saying so.

Such reactions reflect a wider European view of Israel that contrasts
sharply with America's. In a Pew Global Attitudes survey earlier this
year, far more Europeans sympathised with the Palestinians than with
Israel (see chart). These findings come on top of a European Union poll
in 2003 that had 59% of Europeans considering Israel as a greater
menace to world peace than Iran, North Korea and Pakistan.

Why has Europe become so reflexively anti-Israel, just when America has
become so reflexively pro-Israel? Europe has no equivalent of America's
powerful AIPAC Israeli lobby, and it also has a disgruntled (and
growing) Muslim population. But neither is enough to explain all the
difference in attitude. Indeed, many Muslims in Europe now feel
beleaguered and can only dream of wielding AIPAC's clout.

Some Americans blame rising anti-Semitism in Europe, which they also
attribute in part to its growing Muslim population. But there is a
difference between being anti-Semitic and being anti-Israel. And in any
case, it is not obvious that anti-Semitism is a big factor. In central
Europe, for example, there seems to be both greater anti-Semitism and
more support for Israel. And some polls suggest that more Americans
think Jews have "too much influence" in their country than do Europeans.

It is also often the right in Europe, linked with anti-Semitism in the
past, that is most supportive of Israel today. Britain's Conservative
Party, for instance, not always known for its admiration of Jews or
Israel, is now the most pro-Israel party. In Italy, which invented
fascism, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and Gianfranco Fini's
formerly neo-fascist National Alliance, are more pro-Israel than the
government. In Spain, the centre-right opposition was highly critical
of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Socialist prime minister, when he
donned an Arab headscarf to show solidarity during the Lebanon war.

Countries that were most culpable in the Holocaust tend to be
stauncher supporters of Israel--especially Germany. What was then West
Germany became the main financial backer of the new Jewish state six
decades ago, with a first payment of $865m in 1952. Aid continued
throughout the 1960s, long before America became Israel's main source
of outside support. This week's decision to commit German troops to the
peacekeeping force in Lebanon also reflects past guilt.

If the right (and the Germans) are doing penance, the left, which now
controls many of Europe's chanceries, and certainly much of its media,
feels a sense of betrayal--which is why many now attack Israel with all
the zeal of the convert. Until the 1960s European socialists championed
the cause of the Jews and Israel. Mid-century socialists saw
anti-Semitism and fascism as products of the right, so they became
instinctively pro-Israel. In the 1950s it was left-wing French
governments that provided Israel with nuclear power and a modern air
force.

This changed with the six-day war in 1967, when Israel launched a
pre-emptive strike to defeat the Jordanian, Egyptian and Syrian forces
that seemed about to invade. It was a stunning victory, but it led to
the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and Sinai. To European
socialists, who had rallied to the underdog Israel in 1967, the
Palestinians were now the oppressed and displaced. Israel came to be
seen as a neo-colonial regional superpower, not the plucky survivor of
the Holocaust keeping powerful neighbours at bay.

In the decades after 1967 Israeli politics also changed. The Labour
Party, which had largely ruled Israel since 1948, began to lose ground
to right-wing parties, notably Likud. European left-wingers, who had
idealised Golda Meir's Israel as a pioneering socialist collective of
happy kibbutzniks, were shocked by what they saw as the militarisation
and racism of Menachem Begin's Israel--and they began a romance with
the Palestinians instead.

This change can be chronicled over nearly a century in such liberal
papers as Britain's GUARDIAN. Chaim Weizmann, the first president of
Israel, played a vital role in fostering the GUARDIAN's early advocacy
of Zionism and Israel, but the paper is now one of Israel's harshest
critics. The BBC, a bastion of the soft left establishment, has also
been criticised for its bias against Israel, not least during the
latest war.

Attitudes to America have also clouded European views, especially on
the left. As Israel has drawn closer to America in the past few
decades, the left's antipathy towards the behemoth of capitalism has
spilled into dislike of Israel. Public opinion in Turkey, the one
Muslim country that was once pro-Israel, has turned against it in
parallel with its turn against America, especially over the war in Iraq.

Emanuele Ottolenghi, an expert on Israel and Europe at Oxford
University, argues that "Europeans see Israel as the embodiment of the
demons of their own past." The European Union is supposed to have
traded in war, nationalism and conflict for love, peace and federalism.
But Israel now reminds Europeans of darker forces and darker days.

Could attitudes change? It seems unlikely, not least because Israel is
now so stridently critical of the Europeans, especially of their media.
In this area, at least, the transatlantic gap is widening.

See this article with graphics and related items at
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7796479

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Michel Rbeiz
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