What is it with the continental Europeans and their hatred of Israel? In a recent European poll, 59% of Europeans responded that they think Israel is the greatest threat to world peace. Israel. Not Iran. Not Iraq. Not North Korea. Heck, not even the United States.

I've talked via email with people from Europe (western Europe mainly) who just can't understand why Americans have such a "blind spot" to the "obvious" threat Israel poses.  What threat? Threat to whom? The threat Israeli children pose to bombs? Their bodies interfering with the trajectory of nails in a suicide bomber's murder device? That threat?

I am pro-Israel. I'm not Jewish. I just have a healthy respect for people who work hard and succeed. Israel is a winner. They win by working hard and doing things intelligently. I have little patience for people who make excuses for failure. I consider myself to be pretty representative of American attitudes, particularly on this issue. We Americans have little tolerance for losers. Or at least losers who lost due to incompetence.

And the various "nations" (for lack of a better term) that surround Israel just strike me as real sad sacks. Grasping at any boogeyman to blame for their own ineptitude they focus on Israel . Israel is the only democracy in that part of the world. What's Jordan's excuse? Or Egypt? Egypt gets billions in economic aid from the United States and still can't seem to get their act together. Oh, I'm sure someone will again email me blaming the United States for all the ills of the middle east. It never fails. But that's again why Israel makes them all look so pathetic. Here's a country with no oil, no real natural resources, fairly crummy land and yet manages to have a stable democracy with a great deal of freedoms for their citizens.

Instead of the Arabs blaming Israel for their problems maybe...just maybe they should look inward. Maybe writing off half their population (women) might just possibly put them at a competitive advantage with the rest of the world. Maybe if they unshackled the potential of their people they might not stay at the bottom of the world's food chain.

Israel, being a democracy, makes use of its full potential. The people work hard. They have shown immense toleration towards atrocities that specifically target the helpless. And in a terrible part of the world they have succeed in creating a successful nation that could, if it chose to, conquer its neighbors. It seems pretty clear from here that Israel just wants to go about its own business, preferably without having its children shredded by some psychotic Islamic terrorist.

But do the Europeans relate to that? No, they seem to feel sympathy towards the Palestinians. The people who never seem to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity (to quote George Will). How can you feel sympathy for people who intentionally target women and children? If Israeli's had the mindset of these Islamic fascists, there'd be no Palestinians left.  I have little sympathy for the Palestinians. And over the years as I've learned more on the situation the less sympathy I have for them. I can think of a half dozen other peoples who deserve their own independent state more than the Palestinians.

It gets increasingly difficult not conclude that a lot of European attitudes towards Israel stem from flagrant anti-Semitism. After all, this is the continent that routinely discriminated against them for hundreds of years culminating in the extermination of 6 million of them in a period of 5 years. An extermination, I might add, that wouldn't have been possible without a wide spread level of cooperation through-out continental Europe (i.e. don't just blame the Germans).  I just can't think of any other way to reconcile how Europe can consider a country that's smaller than some counties in the United States being the single biggest threat in the world.

In fact, ironically, one is stuck between two possible conclusions: Either there's a serious anti-Semitism problem in continental Europe or those smart continentals aren't nearly as smart about geography and politics as they claim to be.

A lot of my friends are from Europe (in fact, most of the words I type each day go to friends or coworkers in Europe). I know that they're intelligent decent people. I know a lot of you who read this website are from Europe. So maybe you can explain to me what the heck is going on over there.

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