The Israel 'Threat': Making of a Myth

By Robert A. Levine

Saturday, December 6, 2003

Here is how a public myth is born and becomes embedded in the global consciousness as a pseudo-fact even though it is incorrect and even dangerous. This one says that Europeans are turning against Israel; the myth and the reactions to it have distorted much of the subsequent dialogue, on all sides.

Since the beginning of November, world media have given wide coverage to the striking response to one question in a complex survey taken within the nations of the European Union by the European Commission. The finding, as put, for example, by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, is that: "59 percent of E.U. citizens now consider Israel the greatest 'threat to world peace.' " Similar statements have been made throughout national and international media, including Israeli publications. Increasingly, the idea that Europeans regard Israel as the greatest threat has become an axiom in discussions about both the Middle East and the EU.

But that does not happen to be what the survey reports; the pundits didn't read it carefully. Rather, the 59 percent, when asked the question, "For each of the following countries, tell me if in your opinion it presents or not a threat to peace in the world?" answered "yes" for Israel. The other top losers were Iran, North Korea and the United States at 53 percent, Iraq with 52, and Afghanistan with a mere 50. Palestine, Israel's opponent in the lack of peace on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, was not covered because it is not a "country."

That most Europeans consider Israel, a country at war, to be a threat to peace is quite different from their believing that the Jewish state is the "greatest threat." Respondents were asked to list as many threats as they wanted; they were not asked to think hard about which they thought to be the greatest single one.

In fact, the five countries gaining the disapprobation of 50 percent or more of Europeans are involved in combat (Israel, Iraq, the United States, Afghanistan) or are presenting the world with new nuclear challenges (North Korea, Iran). The next country down, Pakistan (48 percent), is involved but not active in Afghanistan's hostilities. After that, the list -- the survey was taken by the Gallup Organization for the European Commission's Directorate General for Press and Communication, which presumably chose the subject countries -- continues down through currently peaceful Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, China, India and Russia. The country with the fewest votes is Somalia, which may or may not be at war; few Europeans are likely to know. And only 8 percent of Europeans believe that the European Union itself -- not a country, although the European Commission might hold that as a distant hope -- is a threat, a judgment not difficult for even a non-European to concur in.

Israel is presumably at the top, and probably would be even if the Palestinian Authority were included, because of many Europeans' distaste for Sharonism. But that distaste should not be confused with anti-Semitism or even anti-Zionism. Some Israelis and their friends have been using the survey to dramatize what they see as increasing anti-Semitism among Europeans; they have been abetted by their opposite numbers, European anti-Sharonists who move too quickly through anti-Zionism to real anti-Semitism. But at least so far as this survey goes, both sides are vastly overstating its meaning.

All the survey says is that most Europeans believe that countries at war are threats to world peace. Surprise!

The writer is a Los Angeles-based economist and former deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office.