Daphne Anson: Greens in Sydney

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 Greens in Sydney. Show all posts

Monday, 14 November 2011

A Little Aussie (anti-Israel) Battler Messing About In Boats

Here's footage of Sydney man Michael Coleman (who appears to have a predilection for sailing by boat to Hamastan-on-Sea and getting himself arrested by the Israeli authorities) and his supporters among the Greens and BDSers (those terms are fairly synonymous, of course) whingeing about Israel and Israeli policy.

And despite the excesses of the truly abominable Iranian regime, the people who are so quick to put the boot into democratic Israel seemingly have no qualms about doing so on Press TV. That's the mouthpiece of a regime which permits outrages of this sort against women (funny, eh, how all those avowed feminists among the Greens/BDSers don't appear to condemn such atrocities against their own gender), which has condemned to death a Christian minister, and which has doubtless sanctioned the antisemitic film - hardcore Judeophobia, this - that you can see an excerpt from here.

And here's a picket that took place on 10 November, following news of the intrepid sailor lad's release - castigating the Australian government for its inaction over the matter. This footage is not by Press TV, but despite the odious nature of the Iranian regime one of the speakers has appeared on Press TV in the very recent past.

Friday, 3 June 2011

Flirting With The Enemy: The Curious Standards of Australia's Left

In July last year, in Sydney, the Islamic extremist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is dedicated to the demise of Western civilisation and the establishment of a worldwide Caliphate, hosted an international conference of its adherents on the theme "The Struggle for Islam in the West".

Some 500 participants heard Burhan Hanif, Hizb ut-Tahrir's UK boss, roundly condemn "secular and erroneous concepts such as democracy and freedom":

"We must adhere to Islam and Islam alone. We should not be conned or succumb to the disingenuous and flawed narrative that the only way to engage politically is through the secular democratic process. It is prohibited and haram."

Calling Australia "this godforsaken country,"Wassim Dourehi, Hizb's leader in Sydney, thundered that Muslims must reject “any kafir political party”, and opined:

“We need to reject this new secular version of Islam… It is a perverted concoction of Western governments. It is a perversion that seeks to wipe away the political aspects of Islam and localise our concerns. We must reject it and challenge the proponents of this aberration of Islam.”

Hizb ut-Tahrir aims at the overthrow of democracy, decries the concept of female equality and demands the subjugation of women to male authority, and insists on the death penalty for apostates from Islam. Deeply antisemitic, it advocates the end of Israel by violent means (have a look at the video I posted in May, showing Hizb fanatics in Sydney - faces distorted with rage and voices rasping with venom - demonstrating against the Zionist Entity.

Need a reminder? Glad to oblige: http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/05/sydney-street-protest-by-hizb-ut-tahrir.html

Now, since Hizb ut-Tahrir loathes democratic and egalitarian values, and is deeply antisemitic to boot, you would think - wouldn't you? - that the heroes and heroines of the oh-so-politically-correct leftwing parties in Australia would give them as wide a berth as possible.

Not so, however.

Hot on the heels of the Sydney conference came an Israel-bashing fest in Melbourne, organised by that city's incipient Hizb ut-Tahrir presence. It was held at Brunswick Town Hall, netting the Labor and Greens-dominated council responsible, that of Moreland, $A300 in hire fees. Despite the Islamic body's avowed aims, which run counter to the council's stated obligation to be "vigilant and ensure that our city's facilities are not used to incite violence, racism, sexism or religious intolerance," the council brushed aside concerns and permitted the Israel-bashing fest to proceed.

And now, in federal parliament, Australia's ruling Labour Party has failed to uphold a Coalition motion deploring both Marrickville Council for its boycott and Moreland Council for hosting Hizb ut-Tahrir.

A press release of today, by Australian Shadow Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (pictured), who's the Liberal Party's Deputy Leader, tells the story:

"The Labor Party today voted to block a Coalition motion to condemn Marrickville Council’s decision to support the campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

With the support of key independents, Labor voted to remove the section of the motion which condemned the joint anti-Israel actions of Greens and Labor councillors.

Labor has provided support to Greens and Labor members of Marrickville Council, protecting them from Parliamentary criticism about their decision to support the BDS campaign.

This exposes the hollow and empty rhetoric of Federal Labor MPs who publicly profess support for the State of Israel, but then fail to condemn the anti-Israel stance of the Greens/Labor Marrickville Council.Labor also voted to block the Coalition’s criticism of the anti-Semitic group Hizb ut-Tahrir which has called for the slaughter of Jewish people.

The actions of Federal Labor MPs in Parliament today can only further embolden the anti-Israel elements within the Labor and union movement.Labor stands condemned for its double standards and hypocrisy. "

(Hat tips Rita and Shirlee)
See also http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/bishop-ties-labor-to-greens-israel-boycott/story-fn59niix-1226068257403

Ms Bishop has a highly cordial attitude to Israel - during the "Forged Passports Affair, " when Kevin Rudd's government peremptorily expelled an Israeli representative, she condemned his high-handed action and declared that Australia itself uses forged passports when occasion warrants.
http://media.smh.com.au/national/selections/bishop-weve-forged-passports-1506211.html

And the previous year she demanded that Australia shun the second Durban Conference:

"Given that the first Durban conference was marred by anti-Israeli bias and rampant anti-Semitism, this paragraph provides the platform for a repeat of the same bias and should provide no comfort to principled Governments."
http://www.jwire.com.au/news/julie-bishop-demands-durban-ii-withdrawl/1869

What makes the anti-Israel Left's refusal to condemn Hizb ut-Tahrir all the more startling is that so many of the anti-Israel activists, especially among the Greens, are women.

It's baffling how those who are the first and the loudest to excoriate sexism and male chauvinism among Western men are so prone to ignore the truly evil subjugation of women practised in parts of the East, and to overlook the misogynistic ideology of Islamic organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir.

That goes double for the Greens, who should be praising Israel's enlightened attitude to environmental issues, as glimpsed in this poster.

For the Greens have long since slid away from the party's foundation priorities into concentrating on doing their utmost to demonise and delegitimise the Jewish State.

And women are in the vanguard of that antisemitic aim.

Read allegations about the Aussie Greens' antisemitism here: http://www.vexnews.com/news/12754/backlash-greens-in-crisis-lash-these-jews/

Sunday, 24 April 2011

A Second Greens-Controlled Sydney Council Eyes BDS

It seems that deep inside the bowels of the Greens-controlled Leichhardt Council in inner Sydney lurks the Boycott Derangement Syndrome bug that infected nearby Marrickville Council until its recent flushing by sane elements.

The Australian newspaper reported last week that an analysis by Leichhardt Labour councillor Darcy Byrne has found that over the past the two and a half years since the Greens took power in Leichhardt almost 57 out of a total of 118 motions pushed by the Greens have been devoted not to normal local government issues but with state, federal and international matters of no relevance to the council's brief. Moreover, the council has spent hundreds of thousands of ratepayers' money on sponsored protests dear to the Greens' heart.

Says the newspaper:

'A Labor-sponsored motion in Leichhardt that ruled out support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign was defeated on Tuesday evening, at the same time as the backdown in Marrickville.

The Greens Mayor of Leichhardt, Jamie Parker, was elected to state parliament last month while his Marrickville counterpart, Fiona Byrne, was defeated after making contradictory statements on whether she planned to push for the BDS campaign to be adopted across NSW.'

It quotes Darcy Byrne (presumably no relation to the ardent BDSer Fiona Byrne, Marrickville's Green mayor) who moved the successful motion against BDS, as claiming the defeat showed that Parker is still bent on an anti-Israel boycott.

Said Darcy Byrne:

"One of the reasons I put the motion up is that Parker's position has been less than clear. They're still hoping, once the public outcry has died down, they can slip it through quietly."

Meanwhile, according to the same newspaper report the incorrigible Fiona Byrne has refused to characterise Marrickville's thwarted foray into overseas policy as an abject failure. She insists:

"Council has put the human rights of the Palestinian people on the national agenda - that's success to me.

This is an ethical purchasing policy. Every organisation, every individual, has a right to decide who they'll do business with.

There's been an avalanche of criticism and pressure, I think from those who put politics before principles."

Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/second-sydney-council-takes-aim-at-israel/story-e6frg6nf-1226042451278
Hat tip: reader Shirlee
For more on Marrickville and pictures of the BDS meeting on 19 April see: http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/report-from-the-gallery-%E2%80%93-19th-april-2011/

Monday, 18 April 2011

The Marrickville Horror (videos)

Sunday, 3 April 2011

"Greens, Greens, Your Paint's Peeling Off": The Antisemitism of Boycott Derangement Syndromers Exposed (video)

A bonzer song and a beaut video, inspired by the sheer hypocrisy and perceived racism of the Green Party in New South Wales voting to boycott the one democracy in the Middle East, and ignoring human rights abuses where they really occur. Although this targets the NSW Greens, it is a stinging rebuke to all BDSers everywhere. They should bloody (that's the "great Australian adjective," for anyone who doesn't know) well be ashamed of themselves.

See also: http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/04/its-grubby-beneath-some-green-sydney.html for an instance of NSW Green antisemitism this week, and (hat tip: reader Shirlee) http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/business-slaps-down-boycott-talk/story-e6frg6nf-1226032282547

Friday, 1 April 2011

It's Grubby Beneath Some Green: A Sydney Boycott Derangement Syndromer and Jewish "Semitism"

Pip Hinman is a BDS activist in Sydney. In the New South Wales state election she stood as a Socialist Alliance candidate for Marrickville (whose council recently voted to boycott Israeli products) and she writes regularly for Green Left Weekly.

In a blog concerned with "smears" directed at Marrickville mayor Fiona Byrne (pictured on this defaced poster) Ms Hinman observes, in part:

'The attempt to slur those who criticise Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as fascists - or supporters of the Nazi’s attempts to wipe out the Jewish population in Eastern and Central Europe during the World War II - is a crude and desperate attempt to silence critics.

While some anti-BDS campaigners would disagree with this sort of slanderous tactic, they nevertheless equate criticism of Israel’s policies with a form of anti-Semitism.

Two weeks out from the election, a succession of editorials, comment pieces and articles asserted that Byrne (who is also the Mayor of Marrickville) was one or more of the following: deranged, an extremist, immature and, or, anti-Semitic.

The March 28 Sydney Morning Herald editorial said: “They [the Greens] may have paid a price for their Marrickville candidate’s indulgence in childish gesture politics as a local councillor. Fiona Byrne’s support for an absurd ban on firms with links to Israel from doing business with Marrickville Council only cast doubt on her and her party’s commonsense.”

An anti-BDS commentator to the online Green Left Weekly put it a little more crudely: “Singling out Israel [sic] [This sic is in the original, and it would be instructive to know why - Daphne] for boycotts and ignoring all the human rights violation in the Muslim world is anti Semitic, no matter if ur [sic] Jewish or not …” ....

The argument that any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic is ridiculous but it is routinely used by supporters of Israel to try and silence its critics....

Antisemitisim - a hatred of people of Semitic “race”, which includes Palestinians and some Jews - is of course racist. Racism, in all its forms (including anti-Arab racism) should not be tolerated. [My emphasis]' (http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45868.html)

Methinks I glimpse that old Jews-are-Khazars trick again, which of course, in denying that most of World Jewry is of semitic origin and depicting Ashkenazim as Europeans entirely without roots in the Middle East is a major weapon in denying the Jews' claim to Eretz Israel and delegitimising the Jewish State.

In any case, when the German judeophobe Wilhelm Marr coined the term antisemitism around 1870 he used it, and intended it to be used, with specific application to hatred of Jews.

Ms Hinman would appear to have scored an own goal.

And in doing so she has revealed the true grubby colour that all too often lies beneath Green.

'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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