But the recent Eurobarometer poll describing Israel as the biggest threat to global peace has nothing to do with anti-Semitism which the Zionists are ever willing to hurl upon any one slightly critical of Israel. The latest victim of Zionist propaganda has been Mahathir Mohamad for his description of the Jews as ruling the world by proxy and for criticising the Europeans for excising "Muslim land to create the state of Israel to solve their Jewish problem". And today Ariel Sharon has forgotten that the Balfour Declaration favouring "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" was predicated on the assurance that "nothing will be done which shall prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine". The world has also forgotten Winston Churchill's 1923 statement on behalf of the British government that the Balfour Declaration must not mean "imposition of a Jewish nation upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole but the further development of the existing Jewish community".

Forgotten are the assurances given by the colonial masters of the day without realising that for decades they are getting inextricably linked with a problem pregnant with apocalyptic potentials of incessant violence. Little did the British had realised then that one of their breakaway colonies would acquire such pre-eminence that not since the Roman Empire any nation has as much economic, cultural and military power as the United States has today. The Economist described the American colossus dominating global business, commerce and communications with a military might second to none. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin found American progress as having gone beyond super-power status while truimphalist Robert Kagan felt present day international system was being built not around a balance of power but around American hegemony. Prefacing his book The American Paradox Professor Joseph Nye (of Harvard) emphasised that US military role was essential to global stability and as a part of US response to terrorism. But he warned that suppressing terrorism would take years of patient, unspectacular work, including close civilian cooperation with other countries. But US policy of total support to Israel and its penchant to interpret any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism continue to widen the gulf with Europe and produce frustration in the Muslim world.

Professor Pnina Werbner of Keele University who closely studied Muslim Diaspora in Britain found the Diaspora Muslims after the nine-eleven becoming "symbolic victims of global mythology, caught in a spiral of alienation and ambivalent identification that no local protestations of innocence could counter". Thanks to western panic an obscure Islamist named Osama bin Laden could successfully stigmatise millions of Muslims as supporters of a transnational "Islamism" a brand of modern political Islamic fundamentalism which claimed to recreate a true Islamic nation by imposing the sharia in all aspects of the society.

To the ordinary westerner's eyes nine-eleven created moral panic about Islam, multi-culturalism and toleration of difference. This precipitated "loyalty debate" which was difficult to end unless one was convicted of sedition or terrorism. The spiraling progressive alienation of the Muslim Diaspora in the west caused by privileging Muslim identity would take a long time to heal. Professor Werbner concluded that Muslim Diaspora in the west are doomed to constantly negotiate the parameters of minority citizenship by subscribing to the Islamic juridical position that since western democracies allow freedom of worship, Muslims can owe complete allegiance to the State, defined as "Land of Treaty". Only a small minority may feel discomfort because of their belief that permanent settlement in the "Land of the Unbelief" is forbidden in Islam. (The predicament of Diaspora and millennial Islam: Reflections in the aftermath of September 11 -- Pnina Werbner, Professor of Anthropology, Keele University).

Eurobarometer poll on Israel as the biggest threat to world peace holds out the promise of light at the end of the tunnel for the Muslim world in the face of Bush administration's obduracy to refuse to see the other side of the coin. War on terrorism, repeatedly endorsed by the entire Muslim world, should not be translated as war on Islam. Though protagonists have tried to convey this message to the Muslims such assurances appear hollow to the target audience because of protean nature of western policy towards the Muslim world. Valid reasons can be found for the disbelief of the Muslims if one would glance at the US-Israeli relations which have direct impact on the Islamic ummah. Firstly, US economic and military assistance to Israel constitutes thirty percent of the total US aid budget. Israel has a per capita income of $14,000/- and is ranked as the sixth richest country in the world. In addition to the $3 billion given annually Israel, since the Gulf war in 1991, is being provided with $2 billion loan guarantee. Besides there is "consequential" aid of $1.5 billion tax deductible donations from Jewish and private sources to Israel. Between 1949 and 1998 US has given Israel $84 billion as aid which is more than the amount given by the US to sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean countries combined. It has been argued that US support to Israel was conditioned by the surrounding of Turkey, a NATO ally, by Syria and Iraq, then Soviet allies as well as Israeli proximity to the Suez Canal which provided some measure of security to American shipping through the canal.

Such logic notwithstanding one must recognise the failure of the Muslim Diaspora in influencing US policy despite the fact that the number of Muslims in the US approximates the number of Jews in that country. It is believed that in the last Presidential elections 70 per cent of the Muslims had voted for President George W Bush. This demonstrates the failure of the Muslims to act as a bloc as opposed to the vibrant World Jewish Congress whose political clout is universally recognised.

The failure of the Muslims to excite in the west support for their cause has fuelled state terrorism by Israel against unarmed Arabs. With ferocious intensity Israeli armed machinery is brutalising the people forcibly occupied by them. The brutality perpetrated under the pretext of providing security to its own people had reached genocidal proportion long time ago. UN Secretary General had characterised Israeli muscularity as a "bankrupt" policy which can breed only hate and desire for revenge by the wronged. David Held (of London School of Economics) found the intensity of the range of responses to the atrocities of nine-eleven understandable. Shock, revulsion, horror, anger, and desire for vengeance was perfectly natural, David Held felt, within the context of the immediate events. Yet he counseled for defensible, justifiable, and sustainable response consistent with the principles and aspirations of the international society for security, law and impartial administration of justice. In the case of unceasing Israeli brutality inflicted upon the Palestinians every day, notwithstanding many censures by the UNGA and UNSC, it is surprising that the world community is yet to see the direct relevance of the principle laid down by the Nuremberg Tribunal that when international rules that protect basic humanitarian values are in conflict with state laws, then every individual must transgress state laws in favour of humanitarian values. Since people no longer live in discrete national communities but in Held's terminology in "overlapping communities of fate" the state of Israel and its supporters must be held accountable for their actions. If sovereignty can become divisible, limitable, non-exclusive and of reduced significance in cases like Kosovo, Rwanda, Panama, Chile and others, why should it not be so in the case of Israel, an implanted state whose security and territorial integrity are being repeatedly assured by her Arab neighbours?

European people, if not their governments, deserve appreciation for their astuteness in finding out that Israel is indeed the greatest threat to world peace and security. European youth no longer wants to beholden to a dark past but desires the ushering in of a millennium, described by Norman Cohn as implying the end of suffering, an apocalyptic, redemptive moment, the final destructive struggle in which tyranny is overcome and history is brought to consummation.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador