Global image of Israel and Iran most negative: Poll

Results suggest that actions, rather than religion, influence a country's image

LONDON - IRAN and Israel are regarded as having the most negative influence in the world, according to a recently released poll by the BBC World Service.

The publicly funded British broadcaster has been tracking opinions about the perceived influence of key countries for the past three years.

The latest poll is extensive: 28,000 respondents from 27 countries took part.

Israel was included for the first time in the survey , which rated 12 countries - Britain, Canada, China, France, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, North Korea, Russia, the United States and Venezuela.

As the organisers of the poll admit, it is therefore impossible to say whether its highly negative global image has been there for quite some time or is a recent phenomenon.

But the inclusion of Israel - and the poor results which the country obtained - are highly instructive.

The fact that the Jewish state shares the top negative rating with Iran, a country which claims to lead the Islamic world, is evidence that the clash of civilisations remains a myth.

Mr Steven Kull, director of the Programme on International Policy Attitudes, a US-based organisation which took part in the poll, summed it up neatly: 'It appears that people around the world tend to look negatively on countries whose profile is marked by the use or pursuit of military power.'

In short, deeds - and not religion - influence a country's image.

Nevertheless, Muslim countries tend to feel particularly negative about Israel: 85 per cent in Lebanon and 71 per cent in Indonesia were hostile.

And, just as predictably, Israel is viewed most positively in the US, a reminder that the Israeli-American alliance relies on much more than just some clever Jewish lobbying.

A more surprising outcome comes from Europe, where Germany - a country with a troubled conscience about the Jews - registered the worst result for Israel: 77 per cent of its responses were negative.

Perhaps with these results in mind, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who opened a European-Israeli dialogue in Berlin last weekend, promised to protect Israel's right to exist.

As was to be expected, the international reputation of the US continues to nosedive: Just over half of all respondents believed that it is 'playing a negative role in the world'.

There are some exceptions. Two-thirds of the people of Philippines appear to love Uncle Sam.

Meanwhile, in India, where opinions are more divided, opposition to the US is still feeble.

Yet curiously - given their government's policy - only a third of the British have a positive opinion of America.

And, more ominously for the US, North Korea is picking up sympathy votes. No less than 40 per cent of Indonesians regard North Korea positively, and similar figures are recorded in the Middle East.

The suspicion remains that this is mainly because the Pyongyang government is seen to be 'standing up' to Washington.

Yet, the really interesting results are buried inside the figures on the rankings of other key countries.

'Japan remains one of the most positively viewed countries worldwide,' the report's authors conclude.

Apart from the Chinese and South Koreans, other old World War II enemies - such as the US, Britain, Canada or the Philippines - seem largely unaffected by Tokyo's persistent history problems.

For China, however, the message is more mixed.

While the survey concludes that the Chinese enjoy 'mildly positive ratings' globally, there are some very telling gaps.

Almost half of all Americans share negative views of China, a figure repeated in South Korea and, to a lesser extent, Australia.

But the truly negative message for China comes from Europe, where almost 60 per cent of the French, Germans and Italians remain ill-disposed.

The Europeans' reaction is determined by fears of economic competition.

For some inexplicable reason, the Japanese were not polled; if they were, the results for the US would have been more positive, while those for China probably more negative.

Nevertheless, the survey does suggest that the vast resources which governments allocate to public diplomacy do not necessarily shift public opinion.

China has trebled its declared spending on US lobbying efforts, but it has yet to change American perceptions.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has also conducted three extensive tours of Europe in the past two years, yet a majority of Europeans continue to have doubts about his country's conduct.

Diplomacy has its many uses.

But its impact on entrenched global perceptions is evidently smaller than governments like to think.

For, once an impression about a country is formed, there is comparatively little that public relations consultants can accomplish, however slick and creative they may be.