Tuesday, June 13, 2006
A little over a week ago, preliminary results of a poll of European "opinion elites" showed support for Palestinians 'crashing'. Now a new Pew poll of French public opinion shows a similar shift: French sympathies swing towards Israel
France has long been widely perceived as a special ally in the West to the Arab world, the fruit of its historical roots in the region. A survey four years ago appeared to bear up that assumption, denied by French officialdom. At the time, French respondents to the survey sympathized with the Palestinians over Israel at a roughly two-to-one ratio, 36 percent sympathizing with the Palestinians compared to 19 percent placing their sympathies with Israel.
Today, however, sympathies have undergone a swing in France, home to western Europe's largest Jewish and Arab populations, the latest Pew Global Attitudes survey suggests.
It showed sympathies in France to be equally divided among the public, with 38 percent placing their sympathies with the Palestinians and the same number placing their sympathies with Israel.
Nine percent of those surveyed said their hearts were with both sides, while 12% opted for neither side and four percent said they did not know how they felt on the subject.
"I've always said that the sympathy quotient toward Israel was always much stronger than we imagined, notably in the (French) provinces and outside the intellectual milieu," said Jean-Yves Camus, of the Institute for International and Strategic Relations.
He suggested that two events, the November 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the illness of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, might be contributing factors in the change of heart.
The French media and the elite, which tend to set the tone, put a more positive light on Sharon once he suffered an incapacitating stroke in January, Camus said.
With Arafat's death, "lots of opinion-makers, journalists realized" his role in the deadlock of peace negotiations and in the Palestinian Authority's internal problems, Camus said...
Hi.
Jenin did great damage to israel image. The curious stuff is that Israel seems that learned nothing from the Jenin (media)backlash.
What will bring the policy of shelling Gaza ?I fear that such policy will damage israel image further. Future will tell if I am wrong
Please check my Board (and feel free to leave a message)
Thank You.
Who says a few burning Peugeots won't make a difference?
Peter:
What do you mean by the "Jenin" backlash? When the dust settled it was well established that far from being a massacre, Israel lost 24 soldiers in house-to-house searches to root out and kill about 50 Palestians, almost all of whom were armed combatants holed up in a locale known to be a launching pad for acts of terror.
The French have a lot to mull over vis the Palestinians, not the least of which is the shameful cover-up of the Mohammed Al-Durah hoax where it was demonstrated that Israeli forces could not have been responsible, assuming the boy actually was wounded, let alone dead, as their bullets would have had to make a 90 degree turn to have hit the Al-Durahs. As Soylent points out, Muslim-led acts of mass violence, the abduction, torture and murder of a young Sephardic Jew is putting a damper on French enthusiasm for the supposed underdogs. Suha Arafat swanning around Paris on the proceeds of her late husband's estate probably also rankles a few folks who may otherwise have been sympathetic to the cause and her husband's thoroughly undeserved status as a hero to his people.
And now, just days ago, we have the Palestinian government and media shown to be the culprits in the Gaza beach blanket bombing, not the IDF as initially assumed by the world.
No, it just could be that the pendulum is swinging back from the 1960s when de Gaulle chose to lionize the Palestinians and demonize the Israelis.
Hi Jenny.
Look at what I wrote june 14 :
" What will bring the policy of shelling Gaza ?I fear that such policy will damage israel image further".
9 DAYS LATER
Israel facing PR disaster for Gaza raids
June 23 2006 at 02:49PM
By Marius Schattner
Israel is worried about getting bogged down in a foreign public relations disaster after a series of botched air raids over the Gaza Strip killing a growing number of civilians and children.
Despite pledges to continue air raids - or targeted killings of Palestinian militants - as the best means to stop rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip, diplomatic officials abroad are coming in for a rough ride.
"Reports from our overseas representation offices attest to a disastrous effect of the deaths of Palestinian civilians in army operations on Israel's image," said one official at the foreign ministry.
Shock and condemnation
"No explanation in the world about having to stop rockets being fired at our civilians at any price overcomes the television footage of a child dead or crying because his relatives have been killed," the source said.
Fourteen Palestinian civilians, five of them children, have been killed in air strikes over the impoverished Gaza Strip, a militant stronghold, in the last 10 days to counter the firing of nearly 150 rockets at Israel.
Britain, Egypt, France, Jordan, Russia, Syria, the United Nations and the United States have been among those expressing shock and condemnation about the Israeli strikes that resulted in civilian casualties.
Yet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has declared no let-up, announcing that the government would continue raids against the "terrorists".
"I regret the lives of innocent (Palestinians), but those of the Israeli inhabitants of Sderot count no less in my eyes," the prime minister said.
'Our reaction is disproportionate'
Five people have died in rocket attacks against the town of Sderot since the Palestinian uprising broke out in 2000, a fraction of the more than 5,100 people killed, most of them Palestinian, in the last six years of violence.
"Whoever fires a rocket on Sderot will pay with his life," hammered home Justice Minister Haim Ramon, a member of Olmert's centrist Kadima party.
He told public radio that Israel had no choice but to continue the air raids. For now, the establishment has balked at the prospect of a ground operation in Gaza, from which troops and settlers withdrew last September after a 38-year occupation.
Defence Minister Amir Peretz, himself a Sderot resident and considered a dove in the conflict with the Palestinians, on Thursday ordered the chief of staff to take greater care to prevent "collateral damage", the press reported.
"The world has not been able to accept the deaths of Palestinian civilians in recent weeks while the rocket attacks cause only damage, the fact that our reaction is disproportionate," said former foreign ministry chief Alon Liel.
"Even if the rockets can kill and are a serious inconvenience for the residents of Sderot, they do not remotely add up to a comprehensive threat for Isarel."
Currently a professor of international relations at Israel's prestigious Hebrew University, Liel said Peretz, who took office with the rest of Olmert's government in May, was partly to blame for Israel's deteriorating image.
Regardless of his reputation as a dove, he had nevertheless given the green light to the targeted killings, repeatedly condemned by the international community in general and the United Nations in particular.
The Maariv newspaper reported that ambassadors in Europe in particular have faced great difficulty with Israeli public relations over the civilian deaths.
Israel's ties with the European Union, traditionally the Palestinians' biggest donor and often more critical of Israel than Washington, had recently improved concerning a mutual boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian government. - Sapa-AFP
My comment :
I was right jenny.
when it comes to the israeli palestinian conflict people see things throught the eyes of their bias.
For some pro israelis israel does no evil, israeli policies are great...,
For some pro palestinians Israel is a NAZI state..,israelis are doing almost an holocaust in palestine and the poor pali are the only people under ocupation in the wholle planed.
I try to look at stuff in a slightly less ideological way so oftemn I am at odds with pro pali and pro israeli.
sorry for having called you jenny , Lynne.
humans are not rational.
look at I wat wrote a few days early .
"What will bring the policy of shelling Gaza ?I fear that such policy will damage israel image further. Future will tell if I am wrong".
I was completely right.
The shelling of Gaza brought international condemnation and even olmert kind of apollogized.
But jenny did not like my ideas .
Why ? Because in a way I wrote in the future israel image could get worse because of gaza shelling.
People who love israel do not enjoy to see israeli policies criticized and dont like to see we say anything less favorable to israel.
The pro pali behave in the same way towards the palis.
If we say something less favorable concerning the palis they get incensed.
Both behave as if Israel.., Palestine were their boyfriends or girlfriends.
They defend the image of their beloved cause fiercely.