- LOS ANGELES (AFP) - A leading
US Jewish lobby group on Friday denounced as "shocking" and "antisemitic"
a poll indicating that 60 percent of Europeans felt Israel was a greater
threat to world peace than North Korea, Iran or Afghanistan.
-
- The influential Simon Wiesenthal Center said the European
Commission poll of around 7,500 people across the continent that is scheduled
to be made public on Monday defied logic and was a "racist flight
of fantasy."
-
- "This poll is an indication that Europeans have
bought in, 'hook, line and sinker', to the vilification and demonization
campaign directed against the State of Israel and her supporters by European
leaders and media," said the center's founder and dean, Rabbi Marvin
Hier.
-
- "These shocking results that Israel is the greatest
threat to world peace, bigger than North Korea and Iran, defies logic and
is a racist flight of fantasy," said the head of the Los Angeles-based
group.
-
- "(T)hat only shows that antisemitism is deeply embedded
within European society, more then any other period since the end of WWII."
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- The results of the poll were reported Friday by the Paris-based
International Herald Tribune newspaper, but no further details were available.
-
- Those polled were presented with a list of 15 countries
and asked to pick which ones represented a threat to world peace. Some
59 percent picked Israel, the paper said quoting a European Commission
official.
-
- Rabbi Hier said that if the results of the survey were
true, Israel should exclude the European Union from the Middle East peace
process.
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- The Simon Wiesenthal Center claims 400,000 member families
in the United States.
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