According to a new survey from Globescan, a large percentage of the world’s population is completely unable to think rationally: Israel, Iran top ‘negative list’.

A majority of people believe that Israel and Iran have a mainly negative influence in the world, a poll for the BBC World Service suggests.

It shows that the two countries are closely followed by the United States and North Korea.

The poll asked 28,000 people in 27 countries to rate a dozen countries plus the EU in terms of whether they have a positive or negative influence.

Canada, Japan and the EU are viewed most positively in the survey.

In January, the BBC World Service revealed polling results that suggested most people think the US has a mainly negative influence in the world - and that the numbers had increased significantly in the last couple of years.

This latest GlobeScan survey, mostly of the same people, confirms those findings. But it also suggests that two countries are viewed even more negatively - first Israel, and then Iran.

North Korea is just behind the US.

The BBC helpfully adds:

Israel is viewed most negatively in the Muslim countries of the Middle East, although also in Europe.

There’s a difference?

UPDATE at 3/7/07 9:00:10 am:

More details at the Herald Tribune, playing up the anti-Israel angle for the European audience: Israel fares poorly in eyes of world, poll shows.

Not surprisingly, the most negative views of Israel were found in mainly Muslim countries, headed by Lebanon (85 percent), but there were also large negative majorities in Germany (77 percent), Greece (68 percent) and France (66 percent).

“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,” said Steven Kull, director of the Maryland polling program. This, he said, could apply to Israel, the United States, North Korea and Iran.

Yet, positive views of Iran grew dramatically in some Muslim-dominated countries.