European poll: 46% say Jews are 'different'
By Haaretz Service and Reuters
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=387236

European poll: 46% say Jews are 'different'

A poll of nine European nations that was released Monday found that 46 percent of respondents said Jews in their nations were "different," and 35 percent said Jews should stop "playing the victim" for the Holocaust.

Some 9 percent of the respondents said they "don't like or trust Jews," and 15 percent said "it would be better if Israel didn't exist."

The poll by the Ipso research institute for Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera was conducted in Italy, France, Belgium, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, and Britain.

The poll, released a day before many European countries mark a day of remembrance for Holocaust victims, was the latest pointing to what Jewish leaders see as a worrying trend.

"Obviously the virus of anti-Semitism is far more resilient and determined than we might have thought in the past," said British-born Rabbi David Rosen, international director of inter-religious affairs of the American Jewish Committee, who lives in Israel.

Asked if Jews in their countries had a "mentality and lifestyle" different than other citizens, 46 percent said yes. About 40.5 percent said Jews in their country had "a particular relationship with money" and 35.7 percent said Jews "should stop playing the victim for the Holocaust and the persecutions of 50 years ago."

The poll also differentiated between the countries surveyed, finding that German, Austrian, Spanish and Italian hostility toward Jews was higher than that in the rest of the countries. In all the countries, anti-Semitic sentiment was positively correlated with anti-Israel sentiment.

More than 71 percent of those polled said Israel should leave the occupied territories and Palestinians should stop attacking Israeli targets.

More than 68 percent said they believed Israel had a right to exist but the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was "making the wrong choices."

A poll published Friday in Britain's Jewish Chronicle newspaper found that nearly one in five Britons says a Jew would not make an acceptable prime minister, and almost one in seven believes the scale of the Holocaust is exaggerated.

In November, Correire della Sera published a national poll that found that 51 percent of Italians think the mentality and way of life of Jews differs from those of other Italians, and 17 percent said it would be better if Israel ceased to exist.

- posted by Izak @ 11:12 AM