... Israel Today ...

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According to a new poll, Europeans regard Israel as a greater threat to peace than any other country in the world. Among the runners-up were the United States, North Korea, Iran and Iraq ... Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia and China were not even in the running.

Sometimes a public opinion poll tells us more about those being polled than about the question at hand. This is such a case. Having been exposed for years to virulent anti-Israel media coverage and anti-Israel bias from their leaders, it is not surprising that so many Europeans have had their views poisoned.

This bias is fed by an extraordinarily successful propaganda campaign that comes, perversely, from enemies of peace - people who engage in, or support, terrorism. Before we get to the causes of the international bigotry that blames everything bad on Israel, let's look at the hard facts.

In 1947, the United Nations partitioned Palestine into two states. The Jewish state of Israel was allocated about half the usable land, an area in which Jews were a substantial majority. The remainder of Palestine - other than the approximately 80% that already had been allocated to Arabs, primarily Palestinians, for the Jordanian state - was to become a new Palestinian State. Although the new Israel consisted of noncontiguous areas and did not include Jerusalem, where nearly 100,000 Jews made their home, Israel accepted this UN-mandated resolution.

The Arab states, however, joined together to invade the fledgling Jewish state, declaring a genocidal war. They lost that war, and a stronger Israel emerged.

In 1967, Israel was threatened with imminent attack by Egypt, Syria, Jordan and other Mideast Arab nations. It responded by destroying the air forces of the most threatening nations without attacking any civilian targets.

After winning the war in six days, Israel immediately accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242, which mandated the return of certain - but not all - territories captured during the war in exchange for guarantees of peace, recognition and territorial integrity from the surrounding states.

At a meeting in Khartoum, Sudan, the Arab nations unanimously rejected Resolution 242 and instead issued their infamous Three Nos: no recognition of Israel, no negotiation with Israel, no peace with Israel. Israel thus had no peace partner with which to exchange land for peace. In subsequent years, when first Egypt and then Jordan expressed a willingness to make peace, Israel surrendered the Sinai to Egypt and those portions of the West Bank claimed by Jordan, thus complying with Resolution 242.

In 2000-01, Israel offered to exchange more land for peace with the Palestinians. At Camp David and at Taba, it offered approximately 95% of the West Bank and all of Gaza to the Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem to serve as its capital, in exchange for peace. Yasser Arafat walked away without even making a counterproposal and ordered the resumption of terrorism - well before Ariel Sharon made his ill-fated visit to the Temple Mount. Israel's actions are not those of a warmongering nation that threatens world peace but rather of a nation that has tried harder to achieve peace than virtually any in history.

Can the Europeans who believe that Israel is the greatest danger to world peace name another country that has ever given back land that was legitimately captured in a defensive war and necessary for its own defense in exchange for a promise of peace?

How, then, to explain this afactual, ahistoric and immoral poll result? At one level, it is simply the latest manifestation of millennia-old efforts to blame the Jews for all the evils in the world. When plagues broke out in Europe, it was the Jews' fault. When wells were poisoned, obviously, the Jews did it. When Christian children were found murdered, who else but the Jews? A German parliamentarian recently blamed Stalin's mass murders on the "predatory" Jewish people, and the cardinal of Honduras has blamed the sex scandal in the Catholic Church on - you guessed it - the Jews.

But there is more at issue here than primitive anti-Semitism, though that surely plays a role in some of the polling results. Its own media and leaders, all reportig about Israel, have miseducated a generation of Europeans. The United Nations has contributed to this miseducation by condemning Israel more frequently than any other nation, well out of proportion to its faults. Criticism of Israeli policies is certainly fair game, but throughout Europe, criticism of Israel is rarely comparative, contextual or constructive. Instead, Israel is singled out for demonization and delegitimization.

This is all part of a systematic Palestinian effort to supplement a terrorist campaign with a propaganda war. The poll shows it is succeeding. This very success contributes to a lack of progress toward peace.

The Palestinian leadership will not take the difficult steps needed to achieve peace so long as it continues to win the propaganda war while encouraging terrorism. Among the greatest threats to world peace, therefore, is not Israel itself but European bigotry against the Jewish nation.

Here is a capsule of accomplishments you may not be fully aware of. I thought you might find these statistics interesting.

The Middle East has been growing date palms for centuries. The average tree is about 18-20 feet tall and yields about 38 pounds of dates a year. Israeli trees are now yielding 400 pounds/year and are short enough to be harvested from the ground or a short ladder Israel, the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population, can lay claim to the following:

The cell phone was developed in Israel by Israelis working in the Israeli branch of Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.

Most of the Windows NT and XP operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel.

The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel. Both the Pentium-4 microprocessor and the Centrino processor were entirely designed, developed and produced in Israel.

The Pentium microprocessor in your computer was most likely made in Israel.

Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.

Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel.

The technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis.

Israel has the fourth largest air force in the world (after the U. S, Russia and China). In addition to a large variety of other aircraft, Israel's air force has an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16's. This is the largest fleet of F-16 aircraft outside of the USA

According to industry officials, Israel designed the airline industry's most impenetrable flight security. U. S. officials now look to Israel for advice on how to handle airborne security threats.

Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.

Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.

Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.

Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin - 109 per 10,000 people --as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.

In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country in the world, except the U. S. (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech).

With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and startups, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world -- apart from the Silicon Valley, USA

Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the USA

Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies.

Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East. The per capita income in 2000 was over $17,500, exceeding that of the UK.

On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech startups.

Twenty-four per cent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees -- ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland - and 12 per cent hold advanced degrees.

Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.

In 1984 and 1991, Israel airlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews at risk in Ethiopia, to safety in Israel.

When Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, she became the world's second elected female leader in modern times.

When the U. S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya was bombed in 1998, Israeli rescue teams were on the scene within a day -- and saved three victims from the rubble.

Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship -- and the highest rate among women and among people over 55 - in the world.

Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity.

Israel was the first nation in the world to adopt the Kimberly process, an international standard that certifies diamonds as "conflict free."

Israel has the world's second highest per capita of new books.

Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, made more remarkable because this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.

Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.

Medicine... Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.

An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment. Every year in U. S. hospitals 7,000 patients die from treatment mistakes.

Israel's Givun Imaging developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill. Used to view the small intestine from the inside, the camera helps doctors diagnose cancer and digestive disorders.

Researchers in Israel developed a new device that directly helps the heart pump blood, an innovation with the potential to save lives among those with heart failure. The new device is synchronized with the heart's mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors.

Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U. S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.

A new acne treatment developed in Israel, the ClearLight device, produces a high-intensity, ultraviolet-light-free, narrow-band blue light that causes acne bacteria to self-destruct -- all without damaging surrounding skin or tissue.

An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale solar-powered and fully functional electricity generating plant, in southern California's Mojave desert.

All the above while engaged in regular wars with an implacable enemy that seeks its destruction, and an economy continuously under strain by having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other country on earth.