Israel's image hits nadir

[Scurrilous]

No great honor being an Israeli at Davos this year, but we deserve it

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3356475,00.html

<snip>

"My advice to those planning to attend the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting at the prestigious Swiss ski resort of Davos is, I beg you, to stay away if you haven't yet boarded the plane. Please don't come, because it's no great honor being an Israeli this year at Davos. In fact, it’s humiliating.

Israel is no longer viewed as a thriving, high tech superpower or even as a brutal occupation power. It is viewed in a completely different light:

It's seen as a declining and dysfunctional country whose president is about to face charges of rape, whose prime minister will be interrogated on suspicion of advancing his associates' interests, whose finance minister will be ousted from his post due to an affair involving finances and non-profit organizations, whose army chief already resigned due to the failures of the war, and whose defense minister will soon be forced to follow suit.

This is the sate of affairs in Israel in the winter of 2007 as seen by the world's surprised economic, political and academic elites, arriving in Davos for four days of sessions focusing on the fate of humanity.

Israel's image is at an all-time low. On Wednesday, when the conference's participants arrive at the local congress center to attend lectures, sessions, workshops and symposiums, they will be carrying European newspapers on whose front pages Israel will prominently star. And what kind of Israel emanates from these pages? The picture they will get is of a country of rapists and corruption at high levels, a country that is falling into moral decline."

[confludemocrat]

1. So, it's less about their brutal policies toward Palestinians than their pols images?

Wow, but at least such things get the ball rolling about the extent of their all-around moral turpitude.

[eagler]

2. Israel certainly has her internal problems but

the growing sense of anti-semitism here and around the world is discriminatory and dangerous.