The greatest level of sympathy towards Israel can be found in India, according to international study on behalf of the Foreign Ministry, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday. According to the study, which was unprecedented in scope and was undertaken by an international market research company, 58% of Indian respondents showed sympathy to the Jewish State. The United States came in second, with 56% of American respondents sympathizing with Israel. The study was undertaken as part of the "Branding Israel" project and aimed at looking into Israel's international stature at what researchers characterized as the world's 13 most important countries, including the US, Canada, Britain, France, China, and Russia. A total of 5,215 people took part in the study. Other countries that showed significant sympathy to Israel included Russia (52%) Mexico (52%) and China (50%). At the bottom of the list, the study ranked Britain (34%) France (27%) and Spain (23%) as the least sympathetic countries towards Israel. http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3696887,00.html
The study is pretty flaccid given the question and the numbers of participants . I would say that the study can be erroneous by as much as 60% . To get accurate reading for this type of study you'd need to go for a minimum of 200.000 of participants .
I wasn't part of the survey but I have a very favorable view of Israel, particularly its defence capabilities and its intelligence agencies. Considering that it lives in an area of perpetual threat, the small nation of Israel has done a commendable job so far. There have been Jew settlers in India for centuries and unlike many parts of the world, Jews have historically lived in India without any instances of Anti-Semitism from the local majority populace, the Hindus. (However, Jews were persecuted by the Portuguese during their colonial rule in the state of Goa.) Israel and India face the common threat of Islamic fundamentalism and there has been close defence and intelligence co-operation between the two countries to counter such threats.
That is because Israel sells tons of advanced military hardware to India and also Israel was first to rush to India's aid during recent natural calamities and wars
I was never part of this survey and honestly, before a few years ago I hardly knew anything about Isreal, its only in the recent past - I got interested in politics and history of other nations too, but am I pro-Isreal supporter - answer is balanced, I against the non-humanitarian tasks by them
That could actually be true. I was traveling in a train (Delhi to Goa) once with my family and there were two girls who had booked the opposite berth. One of the girls was Israeli and the other American. Both seemed quite friendly and knowledgeable. Now the Israeli girl wanted to converse with the people nearby..and when she told people she was from Israel she only got blank looks from most, especially from the older generation. I felt quite embarrassed that time...and tried my best to converse with them and show that not all here are ignoramuses!
looks like you fired your imagination in a big way. I don't know which of the recent wars to which Israel rushed to help India.
mmm hmm? I had an accidental chance to meet with an Israeli couple on a motor bike on my way to Shabari Mala Temple. They asked me why we were all dressed alike and what was the place called. They had actually strayed into the place and as I answered them, they expressed their interest to visit the temple. They were so well behaved and I told them it was because of their friendliness that they have India by their side.
I am taking about Kargil war where it was reported that Israel dug into it's own reserves to stock India up in the case the war broadens, for a change sometimes read newspapers too
Yeah that's true. A lot of artillery and ammunition came from Israel during the Kargil conflict. They kept us well stocked
wrong again. But kargil happened on May–July 1999, 11 years ago, not a recent one, perhaps. I assumed for a moment that I had missed out on a few wars in the past couple of years.