Daphne Anson: Christian Arabs in Israel

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Showing posts with label Christian Arabs in Israel. Show all posts

Tuesday, 8 March 2016

"In Public, Bethlehem Christians Laud Their Happy Coexistence ..."

We're used to slurs against Israel regarding the shrinking Christian population of Bethlehem.

(The accompanying vile pictures/posts are recent posts by members of Facebook group Christian Friends of Palestine, by the way.)

So it's good to come across a recent article by Robert Nicholson, who sets the record straight. He writes, inter alia:

'In 1990, Christians made up a majority of Bethlehem's residents; today they make up only 15%. Some say Israel is the reason for the decline, but then why is the Muslim population of Bethlehem growing when both sectors face the same exact set of circumstances? Jewish sovereignty does not, ipso facto, lead to Christian emigration.

Inside Israel, the Christian population has been growing steadily for decades. The decrease of Christians inside the Palestinian territories is due more to rising Islamism and bad governance by the Palestinian Authority.

It is no coincidence that Bethlehem was mostly Christian until the 1990s. Until then, Bethlehem was ruled directly by Israel. Palestinian Christians (and Muslims) could travel freely inside Israel, visit the beach, and shop in Jewish neighborhoods. That all changed in the mid-1990s when Israel agreed to let the PLO rule parts of the West Bank and Gaza under the Oslo Accords.

The Palestinian Authority is, by its own constitution, an Islamic state that embodies the principles of shari'a, and Christians are relegated to the status of second-class citizens. It is illegal to convert from Islam to Christianity. Moreover, living as a Christian, one is constantly reminded that he or she is not a member of the majority culture.

In public, Bethlehem Christians laud their happy coexistence with their Muslim neighbors. They don't have a choice. They are hostages inside their own city.'

Read the entire article here

Two more current nasties from Christian Friends of Palestine members illustrative of the antisemitism that impels many of them.

(That Bruckner dame's incorrigible.)

WCC mischief here

And, with regard to the terrible plight of Middle Eastern Christians generally:

To quote the uploader of that trailer:

"Faithkeepers is an upcoming documentary film about the violent persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East.

The film features exclusive footage and testimonials of Christians, Baha’i, Yazidis, Jews, and other minority refugees, and a historical context of the persecution in the region."

Monday, 2 June 2014

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall: Who hates the Christians worst of all?

The following is a guest blog by Professor William Rubinstein.

He writes:

Open Doors – an organisation of which I had not heard before a few weeks ago – is dedicated to helping Christians persecuted throughout the world simply for being Christians. It was founded in the 1950s to smuggle Bibles to Christians in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (who were, if caught, likely to go on a one-way trip to Siberia) and later extended its activities to Communist China.

Since the 1990s Open Doors has extended its activities to the Muslim world. So far as I know, this body is totally on the level in what it tries to do, is not a “Christian Zionist” body, and has no connections with the State of Israel or with the American government. One interesting feature of its website is a list, updated annually, of “the top 50 countries where persecution of Christians is the most intense”, which makes for enlightening reading.

Number One on the latest list, not unexpectedly, is North Korea. The next ten countries on the list are as follows (in descending order): Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, and Sudan.

Every one of these, of course, officially totally or almost totally, Muslim. The next ten are as follows: Eritrea, Libya, Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Qatar, Turkmenistan, and Laos. Five of these are predominantly Muslim, and two are residual Communist states. The persecution of Christians in Nigeria of course occurs in the predominantly Muslim north. The Central African Republic is a typical black African hell-hole, with a Christian majority, but wracked by civil war. So, too, is Ethiopia, a predominantly Christian state, where non-adherents of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church are persecuted.

And so it goes: of the remaining 29 states on the list, 20 are wholly or almost wholly Muslim. One of the most interesting of these is number 34, the “Palestinian Territories”, of which Open Doors has the following to say:

“There is noticeably more pressure on believers in Gaza than in the West Bank because the authorities are increasingly under the influence of Islamic extremists… On the West Bank the situation is different: the ruling Fatah party is based on secular principles.”

Notably absent from Open Door’s list is Israel, which is given a clean bill of health. All in all, 36 of the 50 countries where Christians are most heavily persecuted are wholly Muslim, and many others (like Nigeria) have violent, terroristic Muslim minorities.

Can Islam coexist with secular, pluralistic democracy? It does in places like Turkey and in the Balkan states such as Bosnia where there are a plurality of Muslims; elsewhere, this appears impossible, despite guarantees of religious freedom in the constitutions of most (not all) of these states.

Even if the elites there favour toleration, the impoverished streets and small towns are hotbeds of anti-Christian bigotry, terrorism, and murder, as recent appalling cases in Sudan and Nigeria have shown.

“Political correctness” by the left must not stand in the way of telling the truth.

Adds Daphne:

While we are on the subject of persecuted Christians, a robust leading article in yesterday's The Times (of London) which concluded that

"A Vatican official speaks of 100,000 Christians being martyred every year, more, surely, than at any time in history. We cannot be spectators at this carnage"

has provoked this worth-reading blogpost on the website of grassroots members of the British Conservative Party. It concludes:

"It is not just politicians who are to blame. Many of the rest of us have been too reticient about the issue of international Christian persecution – not least in the media. This climate would now appear to be changing. The Times and The Spectator have helped to break the taboo. That is welcome but there is a lot of catching up to do."

As Professor Rubinstein's post above reminds us, in eighth place on the list of “the top 50 countries where persecution of Christians is the most intense” is Iran, while Israel is not on that list at all.
How utterly bizarre it is, then, that Iran's notorious satellite propaganda channel, PressTV, has made a program excoriating Israel in the very field in which Iran (not Israel) is guilty, and that a certain Anglican vicar of this blog's acquaintance has taken a starring role in that program!

It would seem that Israel's enemies are so addled by the appearance in the West of Ms Christy Anastas that they are pulling out all the stops in an attempt to counter her brave veracious account.

Here, too, is something they won't like!

Wednesday, 10 July 2013

"Israel Is The Home Of The Jewish People": Israeli Christian Arab Party Leader

"Delighted to see Christ at the Checkpoint is ruffling feathers among Zionists. Just wait for the Kairos Britain statement to be launched at Greenbelt. The article below is inflammatory but then they don't know any other way other than to prostitute language"

That, I'm told by reader P, is how anti-Christian Zionism crusader Stephen Sizer greeted in a Facebook message an article (in which he's mentioned) by American lawyer Joel Griffith which, far from being how the vicar describes, is in fact a model of straightforwardness and restraint.

"....Christ at the Checkpoint hosts a myriad of religious leaders at a biannual conference in the West Bank under the guise of promoting peace and spreading the gospel. Yet the conference keynote speakers, public pronouncements, and agenda betray the true agenda of these activists," points out Griffith.

"In 2010, the conference invited Naim Ateek, founder and head of Sabeel Center, to give a keynote presentation. Ateek was heavily involved in the first Christ at the Checkpoint conference. And the present director of Christ at the Checkpoint, Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, is a speaker at Sabeel’s upcoming 9th International Conference.

Beginning in 2005, the Sabeel Center took a leading role in encouraging churches to divest from Israel. In addition, Ateek engages in incendiary rhetoric against Israel. Consider his 2001 Easter message remarks:

"The suffering of Jesus Christ at the hands of evil political and religious powers two thousand years ago, is lived out again in Palestine…it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him. It only takes people of insight to see the hundreds of thousands of crosses throughout the land, Palestinian men, women, and children being crucified. The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily."

In a 2011 speech, Ateek stated, “The establishment of Israel was a relapse to the most primitive concepts of an exclusive, tribal God.” Even more jarring is an article written by Ateek which suggests that the Sampson of the Bible was a “suicide bomber.” The close relationship between Christ at the Checkpoint and Naim Ateek indicates an organization bereft of a fully functional moral compass.

Not to be outdone, in 2002, board member and conference organizer, Dr. Bishara Awad, notably defended Dr. Hanan Ashrawi as “very moderate” in an open letter published in Christianity Today. Dr. Ashwari served on the committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and as political director of the First Intifada. She also founded an organization, MIFTAH, which refers to Israel’s founding as Al Nakba (the Catastrophe). Her rhetoric and political alliances are hardly those befitting a moderate.

Not only does the organization’s leadership maintain ties with radical political leaders, but the organization also aligns with theological sentiments far outside the evangelical mainstream. Stunningly, Christ at the Checkpoint apparently endorses a doctrine long since rejected by most evangelicals known as “replacement theology.” The manifesto states, “Racial ethnicity alone does not guarantee the benefits of the Abrahamic Covenant.” ....

Replacement theology taught that a “New Covenant” granted only to those who believe in Jesus replaces the former Abrahamic Covenant between the Jewish people and God. Mainstream Christianity has rejected the “replacement theology.” Yet Christ at the Checkpoint rushes to embrace it....

An organization truly intent on fostering peace would draw attention to the fact that Arab nations force Palestinian refugees to suffer through lifetimes of isolation by refusing to grant citizenship or economic opportunities. Or such an organization could work to counter the overt racism taught in Palestinian schools.

Instead, Christ at the Checkpoint erodes support for Israel and hinders lasting peace through its distortion of evangelical theology and by lending credibility to extremists...."

It's easy to forget, and pleasingly startling to be reminded, that despite the demonisation of Israel from such organisations as Christ at the Checkpoint and individuals like Sizer, there are Israeli Christians stolidly unaffected by their propaganda.

"Israel appears to be the only country in the region whose Christian community does not have a negative emigration ratio as its members flee West in pursuit of a more promising life.

Recent newspaper headlines involve Christian Israelis who are setting themselves apart from their Muslim counterparts, disproving the traditional perception of Israel's Arab population as homogenous. They want to join the Israel Defense Forces.

Against the backdrop of hysteria expressed by Arab MKs who object to national service of any kind, but particularly in the army, the comments emanating from Israel's Christian Arab community sound like a cultural and social declaration of independence."

So states Israel Hayom, which continues:

"Now comes the next phase in the independence process: forming a political party. As of today, the Arab Christian party will be named Habrit Hahadashah ...

This is a historic turning point with profound and far-reaching consequences for Israeli society. If the party is successful, it will provide an alternative for that sector of Israel's Arab population that seeks full partnership in Israeli society, and which sees a Jewish democratic Israel as its home."

The party's leader, Bashara Shlayan from Nazareth, explains inter alia:

"The entire thing started from the fact that I wanted to get my nephew into the army and there were difficulties, they really didn't want him to integrate. Today he is a major in a combat unit.

When I wanted my son to join the army we decided to create a forum for Christian enlistment....

We saw that we needed to create a political party. There were articles about us published in the Arab newspapers and it sparked interest throughout the region that there is an Arab Christian in Israel who recognizes the land of Israel as belonging to the Jews....

Firstly we are completely Israeli, and then comes religion....

People see what is happening now in Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. They understand where we are living. I tell them, 'For 65 years we have given to the Arab communist parties; 65 years and they have done nothing!' Give me three years, I will manage and solve their problems....

Look at what the Arab parties have done. Just talking nonsense about nothing but communism; [MK Dov] Khenin and [MK Mohammad] Barakeh (Hadash), what have they done for us? They want us to disappear and are not acting according to the integrity of their country's citizens....

At least in Israel, those who stayed here have been given the right to be a citizen and to integrate. But Israel's first demand, which I support -- and which needs to be understood -- is that Israel is the home of the Jewish people....

They [the Arab parties in Israel] think being against Israel is Arab nationalism, that it is the manly thing. But if you oppose this way of thinking, you are a traitor. This is what needs to be changed. It's stupidity. So I demand that we, the Christians, be recognized as loyal citizens of the state."

Read more here
Hat tip: TheAlmondRod blog

'For as long as these antisemites wrap themselves up in the Palestinian flag, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye. Only against Jews is this type of racism openly tolerated. It is flourishing in schools, colleges, universities, unions and in city councils. In fact, so rampant is the disease now, in some settings you can be ostracised if you do not partake in the frenzy yourself. Bashing Jews has becomes a trendy position for the ignorant social justice warrior. "Palestinianism" is a viral "ponzi scheme" and as it spreads, it carries antisemitism in the undergrowth.' David Collier (2017)

'This new rise in antisemitism, which I had thought long dead, was not shaven-headed white imbeciles from the far right. It was Muslims, a large chunk of it.... Suddenly I grasped that the British far left didn’t want people to know about antisemitism because it pointed the finger at people they really, really liked. From that moment on, it all fell into place.... Time and again the same tropes emerged, the same sort of stuff that Streicher and Goebbels would have commended – and uttered.... And from that a whole bunch of other stuff emerged: the old blood libel business (a favourite of the repulsive Jenny Tonge).... Nice, avuncular, Jeremy Corbyn, with his peace badges, happily laying a wreath at the graveside of Palestinian terrorists who murdered innocent Jewish athletes, oh, and much much more.... It is the same antisemitism, exactly the same: the obsession with Israel to the exclusion of everything else, the conspiracy theory paranoias, the derangement.... Here’s the test – if you cannot see the flagrant racism in the BDS movement, and if you are obsessed with the perfidy of the Middle East’s only democracy to the exclusion of all else, you are an antisemite. That means a good proportion of the Labour Party, including the leader, and almost all of Momentum: no brown shirts, no marching bands, but the same old filth, dressed in the clothes of a polytechnic geography lecturer.'
Rod Liddle (2018)

'Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements". Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.
If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose antisemitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.' Douglas Murray (31 December 2016)
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

'Islamophobia does NOT come from the same wellspring of hatred as antisemitism. Antisemitism is a true prejudice because the hatred and demonisation it promotes derive entirely from lies and a repudiation of rationality itself.
Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world.
[L]ethally compromised even-handedness is to misunderstand, and thus minimise, antisemitic attitudes and behaviour while shutting down legitimate and necessary discussion of the threat from the Islamic world – even to demonise as “Islamophobic” anyone who draws attention to the extent and consequences of Muslim antisemitism.' Melanie Phillips (14 December 2016)

Jews have re-assumed the role of the canary in the mine and are the first to be targeted, but the world would face the same threat if Jews did not exist. Israel has been at the front lines confronting Islamic extremism but has received scant support... For Jews, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. The virulence of the antisemitic hatred closing in on Jews in Europe (and elsewhere) is horrifying...
Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive barbarism. The writing is on the wall Isi Leibler (12 January 2015)

Expose The Lies!

There is a war of lies and deceit on the internet generating unbelievable hate by denigrating and delegitimising the legal rights conferred on the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1945. The idea that there are two narratives on the Arab-Jewish conflict is rubbish. There is only one – the factual truth that details the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical, ancestral and historic homeland after 3500 years of dispersion with the unanimous endorsement of the nation states then comprising the League of Nations.... Generals can’t fight a war without soldiers. Jews around the world need to join the fight or vacate the internet to the Jew-haters and their lies that repeated often enough eventually become accepted as truth. David Singer (2016)

The "Apartheid" Slur

The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.
95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.
Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.
Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.
There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance.
The narratives did not begin in 1948 – they began in about 1917. How do you make peace with an enemy that has been obsessed with not recognising any Jewish national rights in former Palestine for the last 100 years? David Singer (2016)

The Jews of the Holy Land ... are surrounded by hostile states 650 times their territory and sixty times their population. Yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived. When, during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Cross for bravery. Today, Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long. Andrew Roberts (historian)

Israel is understandably obsessed with security, but its greatest security lies ultimately not in the Israeli Defence Forces, but in political warfare.... Most of the world is not deeply interested in what happens in Israel, and probably does not want to be deluged with legalistic defences of particular actions. What it wants is a clear, calm, repeated case. It is a case – aimed more at public opinion than at foreign ministries – about freedom, democracy, a Western way of life and the need for the whole of the free world to fight terrorism. Sometimes you hear Israelis say: “It doesn’t matter what we say. The whole world is against us.” You can see why they say it, for they are indeed unfairly treated. But when they say it, they are uttering a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they won’t say what needs saying, no one else will say it for them. Charles Moore (2010)

Once again the armies of the Arab nations are coordinating their military efforts to destroy Israel - whatever they say about wishing merely to regain the lost territories.... [I]f the present Arab offensive had been launched at the pre-1967 frontiers, then the Israelis would indeed have been fighting to avoid annihilation. It seems now that the Israelis were right to maintain the ceasefire lines gained in 1967, and that to do so is the only guarantee of their continued safety.
Alan Sillitoe (The Times, 11 October 1973)

Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam... In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel, no place for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone... [T]he greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen...[T]he days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over. We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves....Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But ... I know that America stands with Israel... You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history’s horrors. Bibi Netanyahu (12 Adar 5775; 3 March 2015)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions, of people, and there is no refugee problem.... [N]o one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.... Other nations - when they are defeated - survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed.... [A]s it goes with Israel, so it will go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us. Eric Hoffer (1968)

Most of the present Arab countries were given their freedom after the 1914-18 War, or after the 1939-45 War.... Yet to listen to Arab spokesmen one might think that they had been cheated ... because they have not also got Israel. Israel is only .2 per cent of the land where Arab States have been established. Surely no fair-minded man can begrudge the Jews their own promised land when it is remembered that for every 2 acres that went to make up Israel, 1,000 acres became Arab.... Why is there an Arab refugee problem? The oil-rich countries have the money. There is no shortage of land, and the Israelis have the technical knowledge to show how it could be developed and made fertile. Bring those things together and the problem could be solved. 3rd Earl of Balfour (1968)

January 7, 2015 has already its place in the history of infamy, but also will be the date when the defenders of freedom and democracy will rise and pay tribute to those who died for their freedom and ours. Therefore, we must not forget on which side we are and who are our allies in the defense of the West and its values. Whether we admit it or not, the West is at war with an enemy who will not stop to destroy us...
The State of Israel boasts a commandment that, in one of the darkest hours in the fight for liberty Winston Churchill taught: "Never give up". Israel has proven to be a key ally in the fight against Islamism and also an example of how a liberal democracy can resist the jihadist stake and thrive as a Western nation ... Not only France but also all the West should look to Israel to defeat Islamism...
friendsofisraelinitiative.org

[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active antisemite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like....[T]ell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs... Howard Jacobson (The Independent, 27 May 2013)

For Western countries to side with those who question Israel's legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel's vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values, rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude. Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is lost and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Jose Maria Aznar

Israel is, for us, a normal and a special country. A normal country, because it is just like any other democracy. A special country, because the Jewish culture, which eventually became the Judeo-Christian culture of the dignity of man, is the conceptual foundation of liberalism and democracy. This is why attacking Israel is tantamount to attacking Europe and the West. This is also why disputing Israel's legitimacy and its right to existence means questioning democracy. And this is why we are Friends of Israel. By defending Israel, we are defending ourselves. Marcello Pera

Israel ... is beset today by a unique combination of threats. It must defend its people from attack while defending its very right to exist. No other nation in the world faces this dual challenge. To deny Israel's right to confront some of the world's most vicious terrorist groups in order to ensure the safety of its citizens is to corrode international norms from within ... The assault on Israel is one part of a more general assault on the West, on democracy, and on the moral and cultural heritage that grew from the fruitful interaction of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome ... Should these efforts succeed, similar efforts will certainly be turned against other western democracies. George Weigel

Apart from America itself, Israel still stands as the world's brightest model of national self-liberation based on ideals of individual responsibility and human freedom. Israel's ability to withstand Arab attempts to destroy it in one of the longest and most lop-sided wars ever fought serves as an indelible testimony to the strength of democratic culture.... We know from the past that the West paid dearly for ignoring Hitler's war against the Jews. One can only hope it will not pay as dearly for having ignored or underestimated for so long the Arab war against Israel and the Jews. Ruth Wisse

I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

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