Daphne Anson: Jordan and the Peace Process

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 Jordan and the Peace Process. Show all posts

Monday, 27 April 2020

David Singer: Jordan must not socially distance from Judea and Samaria’s Arabs

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Formation of a National Unity Government in Israel has focused attention on the future of Judea and Samaria – 4% of the territory of the Mandate for Palestine – in which sovereignty still remains unallocated between Jews and Arabs.

President Trump’s Peace Plan published on 28 January 2020 has been endorsed by Israel.
Trump’s Plan proposes that Israeli sovereignty be extended into parts of Judea and Samaria – with the balance reserved to create a second Arab state in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan – for the first time in recorded history.

The PLO, Arab League and the international community have rejected Trump’s proposals.
However US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has given the greenlight to Israel proceeding with extending Israeli sovereignty in about 30% of Judea and Samaria now the new Israeli Government of National Unity is finalised.

Blue and White leader Benny Gantz has agreed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can seek Parliament’s approval for Israeli sovereignty to be extended into about 30% of Judea and Samaria after 1 July in accordance with the decisions of a joint US-Israel mapping committee.
Israel’s entitlement to do so is grounded in the legal rights vested by the international community in the Jewish People pursuant to:

The San Remo Resolution dated 25 April 1920
Article 95 Treaty of Sevres dated 10 August 1920
Article 6 Mandate for Palestine dated 24 July 1922
Article 16 Treaty of Lausanne dated 24 July 1923
Article 80 United Nations Charter 1945

These commitments have been previously breached by:

The Council of the League of Nations approving article 25 being inserted in the Mandate for Palestine – allowing Britain to postpone or withhold the Jewish National Home being reconstituted in Transjordan – 77% of the territory of the Mandate for Palestine
Britain unilaterally granting independence to Transjordan on 25 May 1946 contrary to article 5 of the Mandate for Palestine
Britain handing back its Mandate to the United Nations – uncompleted – on 15^th May 1948 – leaving the Jews to defend themselves against six invading Arab armies from neighbouring States.

The European Union has now hypocritically chosen to strongly oppose Israel extending sovereignty into Judea and Samaria after 1 July.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell released the following statement:

“…the EU’s position on the status of the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 remains unchanged. The EU does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank. The EU reiterates that any annexation would constitute a serious violation of international law.”

Borrell is way off the mark:

Not ‘’sovereignty over the occupied West Bank” – but “sovereignty over 30% of Judea and Samaria – land designated for reconstitution of the Jewish National Home under internationally-negotiated agreements”
Not “annexation” – but “ the restoration of sovereignty lost 3000 years ago by the Jewish people in its biblical heartland”
Not “a serious violation of international law”: Israeli sovereignty is being applied in accordance with international agreements that the international community is obligated to uphold.

Trump should focus on Jordan – having occupied and ruled Judea and Samaria between 1948 and 1967 – to replace the PLO in negotiations with Israel on Trump’s additional Arab State proposal.
The PLO – only founded in 1964 – expressly stipulated under article 24 of its Charter that it did:

“not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,”

The PLO reversed its position in 1968 after Israel gained control in the 1967 Six Day War.
Judea and Samaria’s Arab residents were Jordanian citizens between 1950 and 1988. Socially distancing from them now is the last thing Jordan should be doing.

Author’s note: The cartoon – commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators – whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog.

Sunday, 28 January 2018

David Singer: Trump Readies to Dump PLO for Jordan-Israel Negotiations

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

President Trump and America’s UN Ambassador Nikki Haley – virtually within hours of each other – have laid the groundwork for Jordan to replace the PLO as Israel’s negotiating partner under President Bush’s 2003 Roadmap – endorsed by the United Nations, European Union, and Russia – and Bush’s 2004 Congress-endorsed commitments to Israel.

Haley told the UN Security Council:

1. Real peace requires leaders who are willing to step forward, acknowledge hard truths, and make compromises. It requires leaders who look to the future, rather than dwell on past resentments. Above all, such leaders require courage.

2. Abbas’s two-hour speech to the PLO Central Council on 14 January

· Declared the landmark Oslo Peace Accords dead.

· Rejected any American role in peace talks.

· Insulted President Trump

· Called for suspending recognition of Israel.

· Invoked an ugly and fictional past, reaching back to the 17th century to paint Israel as a colonialist project engineered by European powers.

Such a speech indulging in outrageous and discredited conspiracy theories is not the speech of a person with the courage and the will to seek peace.

3. King Hussein of Jordan was a leader with courage. In 1994, he ended 46 years of war and entered into a peace agreement with Israel that holds to this day. When King Hussein signed the peace treaty, he said:

“These are the moments in which we live, the past and the future. When we come to live next to each other, as never before, we will be doing so, Israelis and Jordanians, together, without the need for any to observe our actions or supervise our endeavors. This is peace with dignity; this is peace with commitment.”

Abbas’s recent actions demonstrate Abbas is the total opposite of King Hussein.

Haley certainly pulled no punches.

Trump – attending the World Economic Forum in Davos – had some additional dismissive remarks to make about the PLO:

1. The PLO disrespected America by not allowing America’s great Vice-President Mike Pence to see them.

2. Money was never on the table. America gives the Palestinian Arabs tremendous amounts, hundreds of millions of dollars a year. That money is on the table. Because why should America do that as a country if they’re doing nothing for America?

3. Trump doesn’t know whether Israel-PLO negotiations will ever take place.

Trump and Haley have clearly indicated that the ground is rapidly shifting under a corrupt PLO edifice that:

· unashamedly continues to fund murderers of Israelis and non-Israelis

· is not yet tired and disgusted of such killing

Replacing Abbas will not solve the PLO’s dilemma. Abbas’s speech to the PLO Central Council was frequently interrupted by loud applause from the entire PLO leadership gathered in Ramallah.

Trump ominously remarked that Israel would have to pay for Jerusalem being taken off the table as the toughest issue requiring resolution in any negotiations.

Israeli concessions can be more easily negotiated if Jordan – not the PLO - is Israel’s negotiating partner – because:

· Amman is Jordan’s long-established capital

· Jordan also enjoys negotiating rights on Jerusalem’s future under article 9 (2) of the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty:

“In this regard [freedom of access to places of religious and historical significance] in accordance with the Washington Declaration, Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines.”

Israel-Jordan negotiations indeed represent the best opportunity to end the 100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

The PLO has seemingly done its dash – and hundreds of millions in cash – in defiantly taking on Trump.

Monday, 3 July 2017

David Singer: Trump must reject Abbas claims at UN on size of Palestine

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

President Trump cannot begin to resolve the Jewish-Arab conflict unless he first rejects the claims made by Mahmoud Abbas at the United Nations in 2012 and 2013 concerning the territorial dimensions of former Palestine. Abbas told the United Nations on 27 September 2012:

“The two-State solution, i.e. the State of Palestine coexisting alongside the State of Israel, represents the spirit and essence of the historic compromise embodied in the Oslo Declaration of Principles, the agreement signed 19 years ago between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Government of Israel under the auspices of the United States of America on the White House Lawn, a compromise by which the Palestinian people accepted to establish their State on only 22% of the territory of historic Palestine for the sake of making peace.”

Abbas repeated this claim at the United Nations on 26 September 2013:

“However, as representatives of the Palestinian people, we have long been aware of our responsibilities towards our people and had the necessary courage to accept a two-State solution: Palestine and Israel on the borders of 4 June 1967, establishing a Palestinian State on 22% of the land of historic Palestine”

On 11 January 2014 Abbas stated:

“Israel’s problem is that the Palestinians know more than the Israelis about history and geography, We talk about what we know”

Abbas was talking through his keffiyeh Abbas’s twice-repeated claim contradicted article 2 of the 1968 PLO Charter – which organisation Abbas heads:

“Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”

The boundaries of the British Mandate – created in 1922 under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – encompassed the territory that is today called Israel, Jordan, Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza.

Article 25 of the Mandate restricted the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home to an area extending to the Jordan River - 22% of the territory comprised in the Mandate.
The Mandate – administered by Great Britain until 1948 – saw the creation of:

· one Arab State in 78% – Jordan – in 1946

· one Jewish State in 17% – Israel – in 1948

· sovereignty remaining unallocated in the remaining 5% – Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza

Abbas’s claim at the UN in 2012 and 2013:

· is deceptive and misleading

· amounts to intellectual fraud and

· rejects international law as established by the Mandate

Trump’s acknowledgement that Jordan – not Israel – comprises 78% of historic Palestine would greatly enlarge the territorial field within which Trump could hope to resolve the long running conflict which now hinges on who should exercise sovereignty over a piece of land no larger than Delaware.

Jordan's inclusion in any negotiations would create alternative solutions to end the conflict other than the creation of another Arab State between Israel and Jordan – a proposal first floated by the United Nations in 1947 and rejected many times since then by the Arabs.

That is a prospect that should excite Trump as he seeks to find a way to end a conflict whose solution eluded Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama over the last 23 years. Those presidents had the best of intentions yet stumbled badly in failing to reach the finishing line because they shied away from insisting Jordan be a party to any negotiations with Israel.

Jordan – part of the conflict in Palestine since 1922 – must be part of any solution in 2017.

Trump – the consummate deal maker – must involve Jordan in any further negotiations to avoid following in the footsteps of his failed predecessors.
In the case of “Palestine” size can really make a big difference.

Thursday, 23 March 2017

David Singer: Trump Can Broker Israel-Jordan Deal but No Israel-PLO Agreement

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

President Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations – Jason Greenblatt – has returned from his wide-ranging meetings in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Amman and Jericho with zero prospects of Trump brokering a deal between Israel and the PLO.

However Greenblatt’s belief in the pivotal role Jordan can play in resolving the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict was apparent in his tweet after meeting Jordan’s King Abdullah II:

“We agree on the need for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Jordan an important ally in this effort.”

According to the Jordan Times:

"During the meeting, held at Al Husseiniya Palace, His Majesty stressed the US role in ending the stalemate in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and reviving negotiations that should lead to a just and comprehensive solution to the conflict, based on the two-state formula.He asserted that reaching a just deal of a comprehensive peace that includes establishing a Palestinian state will reflect on efforts to achieve peace, security and stability in the region.”

King Abdullah is whistling in the wind in believing another Arab state could still be established – in addition to Jordan – in the territory comprised in the Mandate for Palestine where Israel presently exercises sovereignty in 17 per cent and Jordan 77 per cent – whilst sovereignty remains undetermined in the last 6 per cent – the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza.

Negotiations between Israel and the PLO to create that second Arab State have extended over the last 24 years and been dormant since April 2014.

Those negotiations have failed because Israel and the PLO have been unable to resolve core demands despite two offers having been made by Israel in 2000/2001 and 2008 to cede its claims in over 90 per cent of the West Bank. Israel’s unmet demands are that:

1. The PLO recognise Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people

2. The major Jewish settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria be incorporated into the boundaries of Israel

3. Israel retains security control over the Jordan Valley

4. Jerusalem remains the eternal undivided capital of Israel

5. Any such State be demilitarized

The PLO’s unmet demands are that:

1. The Palestinian State be granted sovereignty over all of the territory of the West Bank with its capital being located in East Jerusalem.

2. All Jewish settlements located in the West Bank and East Jerusalem be dismantled and their inhabitants be removed.

3. Palestinian Arab refugees who fled the 1948 Arab invasion of Western Palestine be allowed to return and settle in Israel.

Trumps’s ability to cut a deal in the face of these irreconcilable differences is severely hampered by the written commitments made to Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon by President Bush on 14 April 2004 and overwhelmingly endorsed by the US House of Representatives by 407:9 and Senate 95:3.

Those commitments – given to Israel to secure Israel’s total withdrawal from Gaza and four Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria – back Israel’s above demands in any negotiations with the PLO.It seems inconceivable that Trump – the master deal-maker – would consider reneging on the Bush- Congress-Sharon deal.

If he did, Israel would not resume negotiations with the PLO.

If he doesn’t, the PLO would not resume negotiations with Israel.

If Trump wants to do a deal, he needs Jordan to come to the party and enter into direct negotiations with Israel to allocate sovereignty in the West Bank between Jordan and Israel – virtually completing the original two-state formula envisaged in 1922 by Article 25 of the League of Nations Mandate.

Greenblatt’s meeting with King Abdullah is a possible pointer to getting such negotiations underway.

Trump’s undoubted brokering skills can ensure such negotiations happen.

'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

DISCLAIMER

Commenters are kindly requested to avoid posting material which violates or infringes the rights of others (including their privacy and publicity rights, or which is unlawful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, invasive of privacy, vulgar, obscene, profane or which may harass or cause distress or inconvenience to, or incite hatred of, any person.
The opinions expressed by posters of comments on the Daphne Anson blog are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Daphne Anson. Daphne Anson is not responsible for the content of the comments.
This blog's posts sometimes include links to other websites. Such linked websites will have their own terms and conditions of use and commenters are advised to familiarise themselves with them.
The Daphne Anson blog
* does not sponsor, endorse or necessarily approve of any material posted on this website or on websites linked from or to this website;
* does not make any warranties or representations regarding the quality, accuracy, merchantability or fitness for purpose of any material on websites linked from or to this website;
* does not make any warranties or representations that material on other websites to which this website is linked does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any person anywhere in the world;
* does not authorise the infringement of any intellectual property rights contained in material in other websites by linking this website to those other websites.