According to the poll conducted by Eurobarometre, a group of institutes of public opinion (Taylor Nelson Sofres/EOS Gallup Europe) and commissioned by the European Union, 59% of Europeans believe that Israel constitutes "the most serious menace to the peace of the world." In second place are Iran, North Korea and the United States, at 53%. Following, in descending order, are Iraq and Afghanistan, Syria and Libya, Saudi Arabia, China, India, Russia and Somalia. Israel has made an official protest against the poll which, Israel believes, can only have been organized with the aim of denigrating it. The President of the European Commission, the Italian Romano Prodi, takes the charge seriously, since he has inquired about the conditions under which this poll was conducted and says it does not reflect in any way the sentiments of the political Union. The French Minister of European Affairs, Noelle Lenoir, also expressed her disquietude.
It is difficult, nevertheless, to reject the Eurobarometre out of hand. It collects the results of the polls conducted in each of its member nations. Yes, Israel is demonized in Europe, and France is not, contrary to what one might think, the country in which this phenomenon is the most pronounced: mind you, the highest anti-Israel score in the Eurobarometre -- 74% -- is in the Netherlands. Yes, the United States is only a little less demonized than the Jewish state. Another Eurobarometre conducted almost at the same time indicates that for 68% of Europeans, the war against Iraq was wholly or largely unjustified. Polls conducted within a national framework agree with the European poll.
The real problem isn't the methodology of the polls, or the opportunity of publishing them under the august aegis of Brussels, but their findings. How could a collection of democratic and developed nations sink into hatred of the two countries which are leaders in democracy and development? How could Europe feel the same morbid dread for an Israel or an America which fight terror, as for an Iran or a North Korea where terrorism is a state doctrine? How can Europe judge with such indulgence (only 36% had an unfavorable opinion) Saudi Arabia, which does not respect the rights of men, women, or children and whose role in worldwide Islamic terrorism is well established? How could Europe have forgotten so quickly the mega-attacks perpetrated against the civilian population of New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, and refuse to see the no less atrocious attacks perpetrated against Israeli civilians?
A troubling coincidence. This number of 59% of Europeans who accuse Israel of being the greatest danger to world peace cross checks with another. According to a poll conducted in September by the Pori Institute, 59% of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza want the organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad, listed as terror organizations both by the United States and the European Union, "to continue their fight against Israel, even if Israel evacuates all the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem." In other words, the hostility of a vast majority of Europeans toward Israel is in exact proportion to the absolute, radical, ontological, merciless hatred that a majority of Palestinians direct against Israel. How can Europe not take this hatred into account? How could Europe not ask itself what it signifies for the Israeli population and for successive Israeli governments, left or right, to be confronted by immediate neighbors that promise them, no matter what their concessions or surrender, a genocide or democide?
The United States is only a little less demonized than Israel.
Let's look at the situation clearly. Europe did not stumble into this by bad luck or inadvertence. The Europe of 2003 is mad because it has been rendered mad. Certain of its political leaders and metapoliticians from both left and right deliberately pursue the project of a European empire that, allying itself with an Islamic empire, will overcome American power, a power which represents a free civilization, a free economy, technological progress and the true rights of man and of the citizen.
To be sure, everything is not yet played out. I mentioned the negative reactions to the Eurobarometre from some European leaders. I should also mention as a positive sign the disgust that the Tarik Ramadan affair provoked among many political people and French intellectuals, notably on the left. [Tarik Ramadan is the most articulate exponent of militant Islam in French-speaking countries. He attacked some of France's most high-profile intellectuals, accusing them of putting their interests as Jews ahead of "equality and justice."] But if one wants to wrest Europe from neototalitarianism which is taking hold of it, one must act quickly and cleverly. What is the point of being indignant at the proposals of a Tarik Ramadan if one takes no action, indeed subsidizes the forums where they are advanced with impunity?
Of all the numbers coming from the Eurobarometre, there is one that disturbs me more than the others. The Europeans do not believe themselves to be a danger to world peace. Only 8% believe that they constitute such a danger. In fact, the contrary may well be true. The Europe of 2003 is dangerous because it does not see or does not wish to see the mounting dangers. It is dangerous because the sickness is already within. It is dangerous because, even if it wished to fight them, it already lacks the strength.
Michel Gurfinkiel is foreign affairs editor of the French newsweekly Valeurs Actuelles.
December 2003 - 7 - Outpost