Why the Divide Between US and Europe?

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Given the recent violence in the Middle East, and more specifically Israeli attacks on Lebanon, I have noticed a rather peculiar dicotomy on the boards. Most people of the U.S. support most of what Israel is doing, while most Europeans seem to think that Israel's use of force is excessive, and that their actions amount to terrorism. Or to put it another way, in an effort to destroy Hamas and Hezbollah, the Israelis have become more similar to the object of their attacks.

Now the most obvious reason for this has to do with the history of the region, with the US and UK being the principle parties involved with the creation of the nation of Israel following WWII. However, that cannot be the whole of it, as most people of the UK are more closely aligned to the rest of Europe than they are to the majority of the US. I realize that Jewish people in the US make up a vocal minority, but they are still very much a minority. And it's not like that the only Jews living outside of Israel are in the US. In fact, I'd hazard to guess that a great many European nations have a higher percentage of Jews than the US does.

So why the divide? There are lots of differences between the way Americans and Europeans think - that's for certain - but the basic tennants of Western culture are certainly present on both sides of the Atlantic. My initial gut reaction to this is it isn't necessarily all about Israel. The US has a particularly low reputation in the world at this point, and I think it's rather chic to be against anything that the US supports, of which Israel certainly qualifies.

Granted, if the US government didn't support the actions of Israel it would be the height of hypocrisy given our actions in Iraq. If the *threat* of an attack is sufficient to launch an invasion against a foreign nation half way around the world, then certainly actual physical attacks by a nation that shares a border with you would justify an invasion.

I want to make clear that I'm not trolling, not trying to rile anyone up, and certainly not pointing a finger of blame at anyone, so I respectfully ask to not be flamed here. This is a topic of genuine curiosity for me, because it's quite obvious that which side of the Atlantic you live on greatly influences the way you see this issue.

 

My perception is that Americans seem to be more indoctrinated by a philosophy that violence is justified as a response to violence (if Bowling for Columbine was anything to go by), whereas maybe some Europeans seem to be less inclined to think that way.

But that is a massive over-generalisation and probably completely off the mark.

It could be that it is all just a coincidence based on the small population of people on these Boards.

 

I think Europeans are generally considered "all hat, no cattle" when it comes to foreign policy (including military matters) by the average american. And this is more or less justified.

Why? Consider the following piece of BS:

So, the europeans want first to get peace, then they'll send troops. Sounds reasonable, but what are the effects of this policy:

So, bootom line seems to be that US would want to send a large force as soon as possible, which could potentially help stop the fighting, but the EU basically is saying why not wait till "Israel and Hezbollah settle their political differences" yeah, right, only don't hold your breath.

more about this in Europeans, Offering Peacekeepers, Call for End of Hostilities Now

 

The main reason in this issue is about history I think. The US has always stood by Israel no matter, kinda like a parent to a child and will support it whatever it does.

Second is tied to the first and is the media, I frankly dont think the US media actually covers what the Israeli's do but give each Israeli death quite a bit of coverage thus giving the populace a one eyed view of the situation. As far as I can tell the European coverage is a bit more fair, but I could just be very well brain washed.

Then we have the whole general attitude difference between the two places which HB touched upon. Americans seem to be open to violence and dont carry the scars of war that much of Europe still does since WW2. Also the general shift from Russian/German bad guys to Arab bad guys we have seen in all media. Frankly speaking, those towelheads just have to be evil and I get the impression that USA is a nation that needs to have its enemies and atm it is arabs. 9/11 didnt really help with that image either.

Another factor I think plays in is that American seems to lean towards wanting to see things in black and white. The general European stance isnt to support Hamas/Hizbollah etcetera but to see the wrongs both sides do and hold both sides accountable. Seeing the shades of greys that exist mostly everywhere in the world. Americans has decided that the Israelis are the good ones and thats the end of that.

 

It seems to me the Europeans have always had the general attitude -- what you do in your own house is your business, as long as it doesn't affect me. As such, the first means to end a conflict is by telling everyone to 'be nice.'

This doesn't work very often. It certainly didn't work in the early 1910's nor in the 1930's. At those times, the US had even a more stand-offish policy. Pearl Harbor changed the way the US looked at the world. It certainly made the average American think that military might is the way to prevent attack. Since then, the US has meddled in just about every conflict throughout the world. We have a reputation of shooting first and asking questions later.

Israel's retaliation is very close to what ours was a few years ago. When we started hunting the terrorist, we GAVE permission to ALL our allies to do the same (previously we did not approve of such actions and openly discouraged it). It was only a matter of time before Israel followed suit. I believe we are just seeing ourselves in the mirror.

 

Well it depends on what you see, the US waged a lot of smaller war ie on behalf multinationals like United Fruit. USA is still the country in the world starting most wars - a lot of the before WWI.

Yes, it was the burden of being one of the winners after WWII.

Europe has always been hesitating about Israel. With to major exceptions: Germany and Great Brittain. Israel is somewhat Germany's conscience. GB is for the most aiming for a very good relationship with the US, and thus never do anything wich will annoy their bigger brother. France on the other hand are having their on agenda in the Middle East, they are minding their former colonies.
I guess it's hard to understand for most Europeans that Israel don't want to divide their conquered land with the Palestinians, thus creating to states. Israel is having a loud minority themselves: the Jewish fanatics, and they tend to have a big word to say. And the building of the wall don't give good credit among most europeans.
On the other hand Israel is having a rather big problem; their enemies wont's to have Israel removed from the map and they too tend to be fanatics. This set-up of jewish fanatics vs. muslem fanatics is quiet exhausting for most europeans. The lack of compromisses is evident. Compromisses is more frequent in Europe than in the US and this - I guess - is significant for the difference between an avarage european and an ditto american.

 

Policiy is a result of perception. Because of the different vies, the policy and it's reasoning is different. This NZZ article tells the same story with some other aspects.

http://www.nzz.ch/2006/08/01/al/newzzEQCKLA2E-12.html

I summarize what I understood from this article: The EU-nations wanted to an immediate cease-fire (that's now, not "weeks").

This didn't happen because the much more lenient postion of the Americans towards Israel (letting the war and the bombing continue) was represented by the Germans and the British (and the Dutch?) which effectively blocked the planned EU-statement and replaced it with a very softend compromise.

The same pattern was last week where another offical statement was softend because of German and British opposition in consideration of an possible trans-antlantic fallout.

There is much policital manoeuvring to not have an eclat. That's maybe not bad. Because I think it wouldn't be good to have an open confrontation between the EU and US because of different policies. The German say: Rücksichtnahme auf unsere amerikanischen Freunde (Alway consider the interests of our American friends). If the EU is a little bit soft, it may very well be in the mutual interest of both sides of the atlantic.

 

Aldeth - all European countries are unique and individual, however Ireland is not anti-Israel for the sake of it (Ireland has lots of Jewish and Arab communities so don't accuse us of anti-semitism).

Ireland supports Palestine as their struggle is very similar to our own. In most Catholic areas you will see murels dedicated to Palestine, however during the Orange Day parades you will see lots of Israelie flags.

Americans have always supported Sinn Feins dream of a United Socialist Ireland by sending millions of dollars ever year (making them the richest political party in probably the whole of Ireland), however even Sinn Fein have turned against the US over Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and now Lebenon. Just last Saturday, Gerry Adams (Americas favourit Irish man!) attended an anti Us/Israel parade in Belfast and set the US flag on fire.

The funny thing is that Ireland will still be loved by the Americans

Ignoring politics Americans generally don't make good tourists due their behaviour and attitudes. Over here its considered rude for a foreigner to tell a local how 'backwards their country' is to his/her face.

[ August 03, 2006, 11:36: Message edited by: Cúchulainn ]

 

Oscar Wilde summarizes it very good. He says:

I totally agree with him. It is the difference between Americans and Europeans.

 

Chuch, I really wish you would stop making absurd statements that essentially accuse Americans as a whole of supporting Irish terrorism. Not only are they completely unfounded, but very naive.

If you asked 100 Americans what Sinn Fein even is, 98 of them would have no idea what you're talking about. While I acknowledge that a great deal of money is funnelled from here to Ireland for that purpose, it is by no means an indication that America supports Sinn Feinn. Just a few Irish interest groups with deep pockets, scattered individuals, and probably the Irish mob as well - that's it. We're talking about a very small part of our population - less than a percent, at best.

Please get that straight for once.

Now that is indesputable (though I'd like to think I was an exception when I was over there). I'm always embarrassed by how some Americans act when they go overseas. Particularly priveledged young people. Makes us all look bad.

 

Sinn Fein are a legitimate political party, not a terrorist group so I was not making any links to terrorism. Besides Senator Ted Kennedy and Bill and Hilary Clinton love Sinn Fein dispite the Marxist policies!

I just think its strange that Americans (of Irish heritage) want Ireland to be completely free of British rule, but are fine with Israelie settlements in the West Bank.

I was just trying to highlight a non political reason why Americans may not be liked. Of course its wrong to see all Americans are arrogant tourists, however its no different than 'x' number of Americans seeing all Arabs/Muslims as freedom hating terrorists because of 11 September.

 

Now that isn't necessarily true. America wasn't even regarded by the world as a signficant military power unil a couple decades previous to WWI. American imperialism really got rolling during the Roosevelt administration, which for reference was in the years 1901-1908. While it is certainly true that America was involved in wars prior to the 20th century, its not like we started a lot of them - we didn't have the military might to back it up.

Maybe you were being sarcastic, but isn't that considered rude everywhere? I know I'd be pissed if someone who didn't even live here told me everything that was wrong with the U.S. to my face.

That is absolutely true. In fact, this summer when I was at a family reunion I brought up Sinn Fein in a conversation (I forget the exact context of why) and of the dozens of family members present, the only one who had any idea of what I was talking about was one of my niece's friends who lived in Ireland for a number of years. And it's not like my family is made up of a bunch of uneducated, unworldly people. The vast majority of the adults are college educated, and many have travelled outside of the country, with Europe being a common destination. So if none of THEM have ever heard of Sinn Fein, and most Americans are less educated and less worldly than they are, then I imagine that DR's estimate of 2 out of 100 knowing about Sinn Fein is, if anything, an overestimate. As a matter of fact, most Americans wouldn't even know how to pronounce the name correctly. They'd say it phonetically, and have no idea it was pronounced like: "Shane Fane".

 

You missed the boat on this one. That is precisely why they love Sinn Fein.

As to the topic at hand. I believe that European governments are concerned about upsetting their Muslim immigrants. After the riots in France last year, the Muhammad cartoons, the murders in the Netherlands, etc.; they have every right to be concerned.

I do not subscribe to the theory that European's are pansies and afraid to fight. They have to worry about what is best for their citizens and nation. It is much easier to just make some sort of bland statement and do nothing than it is to risk rioting at home.

 

@TGS - Now that's something I hadn't considered. While the Jewish populations in the U.S. versus Europe probably aren't that different when considering percentages, the difference in Muslim populations are vast. From what I hear, there are sections in major cities in Europe that are populated almost exclusively by Muslims. Not unlike how New York City has a "Little Italy" and "Chinatown".

 

In addition to what others have already said (the collective european memory of WWI and WWII, the minor and major cultural differences etc) I think that one major factor is the influence of the israeli lobby in american politics, something that doesn't happen in Europe. Two american academics, John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago)and Stephen Walt (Harvard University) have written an article about this subject (btw american journals have not accepted to publish this article and so they have published it in a british journal). Among others they support the following:

The Lobby pursues two broad strategies. First, it wields its significant influence in Washington, pressuring both Congress and the executive branch. Whatever an individual lawmaker or policymaker’s own views may be, the Lobby tries to make supporting Israel the ‘smart’ choice. Second, it strives to ensure that public discourse portrays Israel in a positive light, by repeating myths about its founding and by promoting its point of view in policy debates. The goal is to prevent critical comments from getting a fair hearing in the political arena. Controlling the debate is essential to guaranteeing US support, because a candid discussion of US-Israeli relations might lead Americans to favour a different policy.

If you want to read the whole article, you can find it here , but I warn you it's almost 42 pages.

 

And this divide might be partially due to the fact that nobody quite likes a full fledged war right next door.

The line to begin a war with a neighbouring country is considered to be very high here in Europe. And as Israel's considered to be one of 'us', a country that's considered to be a 'civilized western country', Israel's plans to occupy southern Lebanon isn't that easily acceptable, or even easy to understand, especially since they occcupied a part of Lebanon for 20 years without improvement in the overall situation for a longer period of time.

They've been at war for so long already, so the view here is that they should try harder to find diplomatic solutions to the problem, since waging war has the opposite effect to the diplomatic relations in the longer time frame. It makes more unhappy people, who have more reasons to go into terrorist action. Starting a humanitarian crisis isn't going to solve anything. Both sides, Hizbollah and Israel, are to blame for their own part, of course.

edit: And to that lobbying part, it's not just the jewish lobbyists that affect US policies. To larger extent it's the right-wing christian lobbyists that see the state of Israel's importantance in the Armageddon that have their say in US policies.

 

Now, now - Europe is no more held hostage by Muslims than the US is a mere pawn of the Jewish people. As has already been stated, Germany - and not only on this occasion - prevented the EU from taking actions against Israel. Still there havent been riots of our Muslim citizens and guests. What we do experience, however, is a rising hatred for everything Jewish among the Muslims. And the young male Muslims act on it too. That makes for a very uncomfortable situation for us.

In my opinion the divide between Europeans and Americans on this and other matters (say Iraq) has do to with history and what was taught by it. For Europe solving international conflict by means of violence caused ceasing to be the planet's promiment region. So it was learned that diplomacy and negotiation are our best friends. Europe views the world through that lense and wants others to adopt that doctrine as well. Alas, Israel solves its problems the old-fashioned way - thereby solves nothing really, and only continues the vicious game. Hence the distaste among many Europeans when it comes to Israel.

 

Personally, there is no possible way I can sanction the concept of having to beat terrorists, no matter what the cost.
Yes, I fully accept Hizbollah and Hamas need to be stopped in their terrorist activities, equally 15-20 years ago the IRA and the UDA needed to be stopped. However, any British government that had started carpet-bombing Ireland to kill a handful of terrorists would have been ousted pretty damn quickly.
Currently, it is reported that more than 900 civilians have been killed and 3000 injured in Lebanon, not to mention the destruction of infrastructure. And what is it going to acheive? Unless Israel utterly destroys Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine (and indeed all of the other Arab nations, not currently involved but who will be if Isreal destroys the above) there is absolutely no chance they can stop the likes of Hizbollah and Hamas through violence. Every civillian killed is another family who will hate Israel. Every parent dead is a potential teenage suicide bomber.

I agree with T2B about seeing ourselves in the mirror because I think Eurpoe is doing the same. The difference is - we don't like what we see.

 

Well, that's kind of my point. You have a much larger segment of the population with a flat-out hatred of Israel.

From this site the European Muslim population of 50.9 million represents approximately 6.98% of the total European population. Conversely, this site shows that there are a little over 2 million Muslims living in the United States, which the article states is "about 0.5% of the population." In truth, that's a little low. The Muslim population actually represents 0.67% of the population of the United States. Still, by percentage, you're talking about 10 times as many Muslims living in Europe, and in total number, about 25 times as many Muslims living in Europe. To put it another way, about 1 in 14 Europeans are Muslims, while 1 in 149 Americans are Muslims. That has to have some impact.

 

Ah, I thought you agreed with Snook's point that the Europeans stay their hands because of fear our Arab folks will rise and turn our cities into a mess.