Europe's Public Enemy No. 1

In an opinion poll sponsored by the European Commission published Monday, 7,500 Europeans were given a list of 14 countries and asked what risk they pose to world peace. Guess who came in first? Wrong. The U.S. made it "only" to No. 4.

Less than 60 years after the Holocaust, it is the Jewish state that scares more Europeans than any other country, leaving behind even such champions of international human rights as Iran and North Korea.

Those who have followed the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in much of Europe's media are not surprised at all about the results.

Particularly in the past three years, the Middle East's only true democracy has been systematically demonized, lowered to pariah state level and made exclusively responsible for the ongoing violence in one-sided reporting. What's more, according to this narrative, Israel's alleged mistreatment of the Palestinians not only causes Palestinian violence but is directly responsible for Muslim terrorism in general.

This theory was best encapsulated by Daniel Bernard, former French ambassador to London. Shortly after the September 11 attacks against the U.S., he had this to say at a dinner party: "That shitty little country, Israel," he said. "Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?"

Other European politicians have done their part as well to undermine Israel's legitimacy by condemning Israel's desperate attempts to protect its citizens from being butchered in buses and pizza parlors as "excessive" and "violating international law."

The media coverage often bordered on the anti-Semitic, frequently even crossing this line, even among mainstream media. A "caricature" in the Spanish magazine El Periodico showed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a Nazi uniform with a Star of David on his arm, saying the Palestinian state should be two meters under the ground. A cartoon in the Independent depicted him as eating a Palestinian baby while Israeli choppers circle a village in ruins. And when Palestinian terrorists defiled the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem by taking hostages in this Christian holy place, it was the Israeli Army outside the church that concerned Europe. A "caricature" in the liberal Italian daily La Stampa showed a frightened baby Christ asking, "Don't tell me they [the Israelis] want to kill me again?"

The fact that openly anti-Semitic stereotypes have crept into respected publications is very worrisome. What's more, there is an eagerness and willingness to blindly believe the most outrageous accusations hurled against Israel. The most brazen example happened last year, after a particularly grizzly attack in Israel on Jewish families celebrating Passover, killing 30 and wounding over 100.

In reaction to this attack, the Israelis launched an incursion into Jenin in the West Bank to root out the terrorists in this Hamas hotbed. The Palestinians quickly spread rumors about "massacres" and "mass graves." Shockingly, much of Europe's media reported these baseless accusations as facts. When the U.N. later confirmed Israel's version that no massacre had taken place, the damage to Israel's reputation was already done and the exculpatory report received little attention.

In its public statements, Europe's political elite has routinely denied Israel even the most basic right, the right to self-defense. Following suicide attacks, they issue pro-forma declarations that Israel has the right to protect its citizens, but that is quickly qualified by a big "But." No matter what action Israel has taken to prevent further terrorist attacks, Europe's politicians have criticized them as unacceptable.

Closing off the territories is "collective punishment." Security checkpoints are "humiliating." When Israel destroyed empty office buildings of the Palestinian Authority in reaction to terrorist attacks, Brussels debated whether Israel could be forced to reimburse Europe for the damage. After all, it was the EU that paid for most of these buildings.

Javier Solana, now the EU's foreign-policy chief, who as former NATO secretary-general oversaw the bombardment of Belgrade in a war not sanctioned by the U.N., calls Israel's laser-guided killing of Hamas leaders "illegal."

When last month terrorists killed 19 Israelis in Haifa, Israel finally decided to send a message to Damascus, which has been harboring and sponsoring terrorist for years.

Israel bombed an empty training camp in Syria, causing no casualties. The reaction of European leaders was swift. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who happened to be in Egypt at that time, called this violation of Syrian sovereignty "unacceptable."

He had no words of censure for Syria, though, which has been waging war by proxy against Israel, giving shelter, training and arms to terrorists so that they can violate Israel's sovereignty and kill her citizens.

When three American security guards were blown up in Gaza last month, Chris Patten, the EU's external affairs commissioner, was asked what needed to be done to get the peace process started again. The obvious answer, namely that the Palestinians had to end terrorism, eluded him. In fact, in Mr. Patten's world, the Palestinians can't help but to resort to murder.

"I'm not seeking in any way to justify acts of terrorist violence," he said. But then of course continued to do just that. "But you have to occasionally ask yourselves about the relationships . . . between dreadful economic and humanitarian problems, and violence."

The real problem, according to Mr. Patten, was the barrier Israel is building, designed to prevent terrorists from entering Israel from the West Bank.

Nothing Israel does to defend itself and that any reasonable government would do in the same situation passes the European test.

It is under this anti-Israeli atmosphere that Europe has seen the highest number of anti-Semitic attacks in years. Not since Kristallnacht, the Nazi-led pogrom against German Jews in 1938, have so many European synagogues and Jewish schools been desecrated. That many of these attacks were perpetrated by Muslim immigrants is of no consolation to the victims. These Muslims are now part of Europe. The continued vilification of Israel will not only encourage more terrorism against Israel, but also prepares the stage for Europe's anti-Semites, whether immigrants or home-grown, to attack Jewish targets.

The Israeli government's reaction was astute. "The outcome of this poll is not Israel's problem alone. Europe must be the first to address the issue." Reassuringly, some Europeans do appear shocked about the results of the poll. "I am very concerned," Romano Prodi said -- and so he should be. A poll that may have been conducted to shame Israel, in reality shames only Europe.

Mr. Schwammenthal is a Brussels-based reporter for Dow Jones Newswires.

Updated November 5, 2003