Daphne Anson: Palestinian Authority 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 Palestinian Authority and the Peace Process. Show all posts

Monday, 3 February 2014

A Democratic Palestine: Collective Amnesia Spells Collective Disaster, Warns David Singer

The latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer is titled
"Palestine – Collective Amnesia Spells Collective Disaster".

Writes David Singer:

'US Secretary of State John Kerry has missed his own deadline of 31 January by not releasing his eagerly anticipated framework agreement designed to help end the 130-years-old Jewish-Arab conflict. It will now be released by 21 February according to US Envoy Martin Indyk.

Whilst speculation is rife as to its contents, it appears certain that there will be one crucial omission – that any Palestinian State created must be democratic – which could doom any further negotiations.

A democratic Palestinian state finds its genesis in the 2003 Bush Roadmap – the foundation which underpins the current negotiations. The Roadmap stated:

“A two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved … through Israel's readiness to do what is necessary for a democratic Palestinian state to be established,

A settlement, negotiated between the parties, will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbours.”

The full text of the Roadmap was presented to Palestinian and Israeli leaders by the Quartet mediators – the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia – indicating strong international support for a democratic Palestinian State as the end game to success.

By 27 November 2007 – when negotiations under the Bush Road Map were non-existent – President Bush assembled the following star-studded list representing their designated countries and organisations to announce that negotiations were set to commence in December:

Israel: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
Palestinian Authority: President Mahmoud Abbas
Quartet: United States President George W. Bush
EU Commission Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy: Benita Ferrero-Waldner
EU: High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Secretary General of the Council of the European Union Javier Solana
EU President (Portugal): Minister of State and of Foreign Affairs Luis Amado
Russia: Minister for Foreign Affairs Sergey V. Lavrov
UNSYG: Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
Quartet Representative: Middle East Envoy Tony Blair
Arab League Follow-up Committee:
Algeria Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Mourad Medelci
Bahrain Minister of Foreign Affairs Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa
Egypt Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Aboul Gheit
Jordan Minister of Foreign Affairs Salaheddin Al-Bashir
Lebanon Minister of Culture Tarek Mitri
Morocco Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Taieb Fassi Fihri
Qatar Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ahmed bin Abdulla Al-Mahmoud
Saudi Arabia Minister of Foreign Affairs Saud Al-Faisal
Sudan Ambassador John Ukec
Syria Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Fayssal Mekdad
Tunisia Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdelwahab Abdallah
Yemen Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Expatriate Affairs Abu Bakr al-Qirbi
Arab League SYG: Secretary-General Amre Moussa
G-8, P-5:
Canada Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Bernier
China Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi
France Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Bernard Kouchner
Germany Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier
Italy Vice President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs Massimo D’Alema
Japan Special Envoy for the Middle East Tatsuo Arima
United Kingdom Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs David Miliband
Others:
Austria Minister of Foreign Affairs Ursula Plassnik Celso
Brazil Minister of State for External RelationsLuiz Nunes Amorim
Denmark Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Moeller
Greece Minister of Foreign Affairs Dora Bakoyannis
India Minister of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Shri Kapil Sibal
Indonesia Minister of Foreign Affairs Noer Hassan Wirajuda
Malaysia Minister of Foreign Affairs Syed Hamid bin Syed Jaafar Albar
Mauritania Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Mohamed Saleck Ould Mohamed Lemine
Mexico Under Secretary Lourdes Aranda
Netherlands Minister for European Affairs Frans Timmermans
Norway Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Store
OIC Secretary General Ekemelddin Ihsanoglu
Oman Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdulla
Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan
Poland Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski
Senegal Senior Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Cheikh Tidiane Gadio
Slovenia Minister of Foreign Affairs Dimitrij Rupel
South Africa Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma
Spain Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Angel Moratinos
Sweden Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt
Turkey Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chief EU Negotiator Ali Babacan
United Arab Emirates Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdulla bin Zayed Al Nahayan
Vatican (Holy See) Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Special Envoy Pietro Parolin
Observers:
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn
World Bank President Robert Zoellick

They all heard President Bush state the following:

“We meet to lay the foundation for the establishment of a new nation -- a democratic Palestinian state that will live side by side with Israel in peace and security…

… Today, Palestinians and Israelis each understand that helping the other to realize their aspirations is key to realizing their own aspirations -- and both require an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state"

No democratic State – no solution.

By 19 May 2011 Bush’s successor, President Obama, had started to vacillate:

“The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.”

If Obama and the Annapolis participants have conveniently forgotten that creating a “democratic Palestinian State” is fundamental to the conflict being ended – then they only have themselves to blame for the chaos and violence that will surely follow should Israel refuse to negotiate within a Kerry framework agreement that omits any reference to a democratic Palestinian State.

International treachery and duplicity would surely have triumphed over international diplomacy.'

Monday, 18 November 2013

Palestine – No Elections, No Solutions, observes David Singer

Here's the latest article ("Palestine – No Elections, No Solutions") by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

'The PLO negotiating team – headed by perennial negotiator Saeb Erekat – resigned this week in the middle of a nine month period set aside for intense and secret negotiations with Israel to achieve the creation of a second Arab state – in addition to Jordan – in former Mandatory Palestine.

PLO Chairman, head of Fatah, unconstitutional self-styled President of the defunct Palestinian Authority and unelected President of the “State of Palestine” Mahmoud Abbas was quick to point out on Egyptian TV:

“Either we can convince it to return, and we’re trying with them, or we form a new delegation.”

Either way – it will be a waste of time.

The “two state solution” posited by these currently stalled negotiations is doomed to failure.

Ramzy Baroud – a Palestinian-American journalist, author and editor who taught Mass Communication at Australia’s Curtin University of Technology, and is Editor-in-Chief of the Palestine Chronicle – explains the futility of further negotiations with the PLO in his article “Why a winning Palestinian narrative is hard to find”:

“In an initially pointless exercise that lasted nearly an hour, I flipped between two Palestinian television channels, al-Aqsa TV of Hamas in Gaza and Palestine TV of Fatah in the West Bank. While both purported to represent Palestine and the Palestinians, each seemed to represent some other place and some other people. It was all very disappointing.

Hamas’ world is fixated on their hate of Fatah and other factional personal business. Fatah TV is stuck between several worlds of archaic language of phony revolutions, factional rivalry and unmatched self-adoration. The two narratives are growingly alien and will unlikely ever move beyond their immediate sense of self-gratification and utter absurdity.”

These irreconcilable differences between Fatah – the dominant faction in the PLO – and Hamas – not a member of the PLO – have remained unresolved since 2007.

In the absence of any unified representation for the Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza - how can any agreement between Israel and the PLO ever bring about a final end to the Arab-Jewish conflict that has raged unresolved for the last 130 years?

Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a Hamas official based in Gaza, told his movement’s daily newspaper – Al-Resalah – in August this year that Hamas should act to isolate Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and strip him of any representative capacity over his decision to negotiate with Israel.

“The PA has dealt the final blow to reconciliation talks, and Hamas will never accept the negotiation track and its result.”

CBN News confirmed Hamas’s stance on 30 September in its article “Hamas: No Agreement That Includes Israel’s Right to Exist”:

“We will not recognize any agreements at the expense of our land, rights and religious sites,” Asharq al-Awsat quoted Hamas officials on Sunday. “Palestine — the whole of Palestine from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river [i.e., Israel] — is the property Palestinian people and our nation, and no usurper has any right to a speck of dust of its territory.”

A spokesman for the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the so-called military wing of Hamas, promised to be “at the heart of the new intifada.”

And Islamic Jihad member Ahmed al-Mudallal said, “Resistance in Palestine is the spearhead in the confrontation with the Zionist project, which targets Jerusalem, al-Aksa [mosque on the Temple Mount] and the whole of Palestine.”

Hamas vowed never to accept any agreement that includes recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

“Negotiations and security coordination with the Zionist enemy form a cover for the continuation of the occupation’s crimes against our territory, our people and our religious sites,” the statement continued.

“We call upon all Palestinian forces and factions to reject the path of these wasteful negotiations, which have proved their failure to achieve our people’s dreams and only brought them more waste, loss and division in the face of the occupation’s crimes and plans.”

Hamas called on the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah faction “to end negotiations and security coordination with the enemy and to return to resistance, national reconciliation and Palestinian unity.”

Fatah responded by saying it “will remain committed to Palestinian unity and will continue to work for the unity of the people, territory and the Palestinian leadership, which is represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization,” [Saudi newspaper] Asharq al-Awsat reported.

US Secretary of State John Kerry showed once again how little he understands about the Jewish-Arab conflict he is spending so much time trying to resolve – telling TV audiences in Israel and the West Bank:

“The alternative to getting back to the talks is the potential of chaos. I mean, does Israel want a third intifada?"

Kerry obviously fails to appreciate that it is Hamas and its backers that will instigate a third intifada – especially if Israel and the PLO look like miraculously agreeing on anything.

Kerry should be focusing on the common denominator that has virtually guaranteed the failure of negotiations during the last seven years – the refusal of both Hamas and the PLO to allow the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank to hold fair and transparent triennial elections to determine who should represent them in final status negotiations with Israel.

Elections will end the culture of political impotency which has proved an impenetrable barrier to the Palestinian Arabs claimed right to self determination.

Without such elections – no final and binding agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs is possible.'

Friday, 10 August 2012

David Singer On How Peace Negotiations Might Be Kick-Started

In his latest article via the antipodean J-Wire service, "Palestine – Don't Repeat The Syrian Fiasco," Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer considers ways in which Israel and the Palestinian Authority might be coaxed back to the negotiating table.

Writes David Singer:

'Australia’s Foreign Minister – Senator Bob Carr – has been visiting Israel and in the time honoured tradition of all such visiting dignitaries has met with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu..

The usual motherhood statement that normally follows such meetings was issued:

"In discussions with Prime Minister Netanyahu, Senator Carr underscored the importance of reaching a negotiated two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and emphasised the urgent need for resumption of negotiations."

Australia – like most countries around the world – has put its credibility, money and prestige on the line in wanting to see this outcome – even though 19 years of fruitless negotiations have failed to get the proposal to first base.

The key to such a solution is that it must be "negotiated" and for that to happen there is an "urgent need for resumption of negotiations".

The problem is that Israel is ready to resume such negotiations without preconditions – but the Palestinian Authority will not resume those negotiations unless Israel imposes a building freeze in the West Bank for the duration of the resumed negotiations.

A 10-month moratorium imposed by Israel in November 2009 on new residential building in the West Bank proved to be a complete waste of time, as the Palestinian Authority only returned to the negotiating table one month prior to the moratorium’s expiry – and then tried to get an extension – which was rejected and has been refused ever since.

Australia and other like-minded nations must now actively and urgently engage in trying to break this impasse by getting Israel and the Palestinian Authority back to the negotiating table as soon as possible – if the two-state solution so earnestly desired is ever to be achieved.

There is no prospect of such a solution whilst Australia and many other countries of influence become more frustrated crossing their arms and furrowing their brows in making similar ineffectual statements.

At the same time these same countries are also wringing their hands at the murder and mayhem that has been going on before their very eyes in Syria for the last 18 months. Any action by them to halt the slaughter there – short of military intervention – is apparently beyond contemplation.

These countries can now only sit helplessly by and pray that there will be sufficient defections from the Assad regime to make his continuing grip on power untenable.

Iran, Russia and China – and the Alawite ruling minority – however have different ideas. The end of the bloodbath is nowhere in sight.

Faced with this humanitarian tragedy in Syria, Australia and those other countries seeking the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority need to seriously reflect on the responsibility they will ultimately have to bear should violence shatter the present relative calm and lead to a strong military response by Israel in the West Bank or Gaza.

They should give serious consideration to implementing some of the following measures to try and get Israel and the Palestinian Authority back to the negotiating table immediately:

1. America could offer to pardon Israeli-American spy Jonathan Pollard after being imprisoned for the last 27 years – in return for Israel agreeing to a limited moratorium on building in the West Bank.
Pollard has renounced his United States citizenship and is now an Israeli citizen. He would be deported to Israel if he were released from prison.
President Obama has been opposed to such a move – but the deteriorating situation in Syria and the continuing stalemate between Israel and the Palestinian Authority could be the catalysts for the President changing his mind – not to mention the boost that such a decision would give to his chances of re-election in November.
An offer to release Pollard would prove virtually impossible for Israel to refuse.

2.   Australia and the European Union Member States could withhold any further funding to Israeli-based non-government organisations financially assisting the 5 per cent of the Palestinian Arabs who presently live in Area C – some 60 per cent of the West Bank.
Much of this money has gone to fund illegal Arab building activity in Area C. Israel is acting through the Courts to end such illegal building and there is growing confrontation between the civil administration and the Arab residents,
Keeping the money flowing at least for humanitarian – if not building – purposes could be an incentive to the Palestinian Authority to return to the negotiating table.

3.   Some EU member states have formed an interest group to advocate a change in Israeli policy in Area C including Germany, the UK, Belgium, Denmark, France, Sweden and the EU Commission. These countries could indicate they will not pursue their agenda whilst the Palestinian Authority remains absent from the negotiating table.

4.   Withdrawing all diplomatic and financial support should the Palestinian Authority continue to pursue its quest to be recognized as a non-member observer state at the United Nations in September in breach of its agreement to not take such unilateral action.

5.   Cutting funding to the Palestinian Authority for use in Areas A and B where the remaining 95 per cent of the West Bank Arab population reside.

6.   Those 87 countries that did not vote to admit Palestine as a member State of UNESCO could begin a diplomatic campaign to terminate Palestine’s membership of UNESCO by securing a resolution requiring UNESCO to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice as to the legality and constitutionality of the decision to admit Palestine as a member state of UNESCO.

Whether any of these suggestions will have the desired effect of convincing Israel and the Palestinian Authority to resume negotiations can only be determined once they have been put in motion.

The real question is – can the world afford to sit by and do nothing but utter platitudes such as those expressed by Australia’s Foreign Minister?

If that is all they continue to do – then the prospect of negotiations resuming again is bleak indeed.

The consequences and repercussions that could follow will bring home to the international community the folly of their inaction and the threat to human life their indecision helped incubate.

Another potential Syria with the world sitting by on the sidelines as the Israeli/Arab conflict spirals out of control – unable to do anything but call for a ceasefire that the international community is unable to enforce – is a horrible scenario.

It hopefully can be avoided – if the international community acts now.'

Cross-posted from here

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

'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.