Taken from a contribution to the Metafilter discussion on the controversial Eurobarometer poll which yielded the result that 59% of the EU citizens think that Israel presents a threat to peace in the world. Joined second in terms of danger were Iran, North Korea and the United States with 53% each.

It is interesting to look at the exact country breakdown (see page 82 of the Flash EB No 151 "Iraq and Peace in the World"). Only 48% of the Italians seem to think that Israel poses a threat to peace whereas 74% of the Dutch have this opinion. The extreme values for the US are 88% (Greece) and again Italy with 43% followed shortly by Germany where 45% think that the US present a threat to world peace.

The survey was carried out by Eos Gallup Europe which interviewed 7,515 citizens from the 15 EU member states by telephone from October, 8th to October, 16th, 2003. According to the short version of the report which does not include the disputed poll from above the statistical margin of error is +- 4.4% points per country and +- 1.2% points on the EU level. Per member state about 500 people were interviewed.