Daphne Anson: Trades Union Congress (UK) and the Boycott of Israel

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

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

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

Showing posts with label Trades Union Congress (UK) and the Boycott of Israel. Show all posts

Thursday, 11 September 2014

The UK & EU Must Immediately Stop Arms Sales To Israel, Declare Miliband's Trade Union Masters

Britain's Labour Party is based in the trade union movement, with most Labour MPs being sponsored by various unions. "Red Ed" Miliband, the party's leader (and occasional avowed "Zionist", from a Communist background), is thus in thral to the unions, like his predecessors in the job.

Yesterday (10 September) the Trades Union Congress (at present headed by Bradford bus driver Mohammed Taj) which represents fifty-four of the largest unions in Britain and accounts for some six million members, voted overwhelmingly at its meeting in Liverpool to adopt its General Council's Statement on Gaza, which reads as follows (emphasis added):

'Congress deplores the fact that since 7 July,over two thousand Palestinians have been killed, two thirds of them civilians and including many people going about their daily work, as well as nearly 500 children, and 69 Israelis, four of whom were civilians. Tens of thousands of residents of Gaza have fled their homes or seen them damaged or destroyed, and have nowhere to go.

Congress welcomes the ceasefire negotiated between the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Israeli Government, as called for in the General Council statement in July, and recognises the partial relaxation of the blockade of Gaza, but recognises that it will not be sufficient unless the blockade of Gaza and occupation of the West Bank are resolved in line with UN resolutions. Congress deplores the announcement by the Israel Defence Forces’ Civil Administration on 31 August of further annexations of land for settlement construction in the West Bank, allegedly as a response to the kidnapping and killing of three Jewish teens by Hamas militants in the area in June. This is a shocking provocation that will redraw the map of the West Bank and can only stoke up further resentment.

Congress particularly deplores attacks on UN facilities, including the attacks on seven UNWRA schools between 21 July and 3 August which killed more than 50 people and injured over 300, and notes the UNOCHA’s regular reports of the terrible damage done to properties, infrastructure and people.

Congress believes that international law against the targeting of civilians must be enforced, and that those responsible for breaches of such law should be dealt with in the International Criminal Court. We welcome the UN Human Rights Council’s announcement of an independent Commission of Inquiry to investigate purported violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and particularly in the Gaza Strip since the conflict began. We reiterate our condemnation of the collective punishment of the residents of Gaza.

Congress welcomes the creation of a unity government for the Palestinian Authority, which necessarily involves both Fatah and Hamas, and urges the UK government and the European Union to support this development, in the context of the TUC’s longstanding support for a two-state solution based on security for both Israel and Palestine and justice for the Palestinian people. Congress resolves to step up the campaign for a free Palestine, and welcomes the ITUC Day of Action for Gaza held on 7 August and the demonstrations for peace organised across the UK by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others.

We deplore racism, descrimination and hate crimes of any form, including antisemitism, such as attacks on synagogues.

Congress considers the response of the UK government, the EU and the UN to Israel’s attack on Gaza has been unacceptable. We join with Amnesty International, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others in calling on the UK government and the EU to end immediately arms trading with Israel including all military-industrial collaboration. The TUC should, working with the relevant unions, press those companies involved in supporting Israel’s military to cease to do so.

Congress reiterates its call for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement until the rights of the Palestinians are established, and calls on the Israeli state to pay for humanitarian assistance and rebuilding Gaza. We encourage unions and their members to give generously to international trade union humanitarian aid funds aimed at providing assistance to the people of Gaza and urge Global Union Federations to seek affiliation from Palestinian unions, as many already have.

Congress commits to raise the pressure on corporations complicit in arms trading, the settlements, occupation and the wall by organising a seminar for affiliated unions to consider strategies – such as worker capital strategies including pension funds – to put pressure on complicit corporations to cease to do so and withdraw from the Occupied Territories. Congress agrees to work with the international trade union movement and workplace representatives to co-ordinate such action against complicit corporations.

We reiterate our encouragement to unions to affiliate to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, urge union members to join the PSC Trade Union network, and agree to organise, jointly with the PSC, a trade union conference in 2015 to review progress on the action points listed above.

Congress reiterates its solidarity with the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions, and our commitment to visit Gaza with the PGFTU as soon as is practicable. We will continue to be guided by the PGFTU and encourage unions to revitalise their contacts with sister organisations in Palestine, especially to assist them in rebuilding their organisations in Gaza. We will seek the support of the ETUC and ITUC for the policies set out in this statement, and support the calls of the ETUC and ITUC for a just settlement to the problems of the Middle East. '

Needless to say, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (logo above; note that Israel-free map), is jubilant, as the statement by its director, Sarah Colborne, shown above, indicates

The PSC notes:

'Speakers from the major unions were lining up during today’s debate to endorse the General Council’s statement on Gaza....

Following the debate, Billy Hayes, CWU [Communication Workers Union] General Secretary, said:

‘TUC General Council Statement is a recognition of the central importance of the struggle of the Palestinian people for Justice. The CWU greatly welcomes this statement and believes it will contribute to strengthen the international campaign of solidarity with the Palestinian People.’

Christine Blower, General Secretary of the NUT [National Union of Teachers; see here for its campaigns, including this], said:

‘NUT is very pleased to support the General Council statement on Gaza. We were absolutely prepared to put in an emergency motion, but the fact that there is a General Council statement, demonstrates that the move towards the Palestine cause has been not just in the TUC, but in the British public as a whole. The job now is to make sure that everybody begins to take the action urgently needed to ensure that there is a free Palestine and that Israel desists from all military activity.’

Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite, said:

‘I welcome the General Council statement on Gaza as an expression of the widest support from the British labour movement with the Palestinian people. There is much to be done in building practical solidarity not least in mobilising our workplace representatives to take action against companies which have profited from the war in Gaza, the occupation of the West Bank and the construction of the ‘separation’ wall.’ ....

The General Council statement encourages unions to affiliate to PSC and urges union members to join the PSC Trade Union network.'

See more here

The London Jewish News (a giveaway rival to the Jewish Chronicle) reports:

'News that delegates at the annual Trade Union Congress (TUC) conference in Liverpool had done so was greeted with disappointment from the Jewish community, which warned the umbrella group against double standards.

[The TUC] condemns anti-Semitism while speaking positively about anti-Semitic Hamas, and it doesn’t even mention rocket attacks on Israel,” read a statement from the Fair Play campaign, a cross-communal initiative to fight boycotts.

It supports a two-state solution, but refuses to work to make the two-state solution a reality… The TUC’s actions are instead focused on pulling Israeli and Palestinian workers further apart.

With union activists targeting the EU Israel Trade Agreement, the Fair Play spokesperson charged that the TUC decision would lay the groundwork for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in the UK.

Today’s decision will mean that the TUC will provide the infrastructure of the anti-Israel boycott movement, funding and organising its conferences and coordinating its campaigns.”

The TUC vote to boycott Israeli goods comes after UNITE, the country’s biggest union with 1.7 million members, opted to do likewise in July this year.

In Liverpool, delegates were presented with figures from the Gaza conflict, with one slide titled “Devastation” listing the number of homes, schools, hospitals, health centres and mosques destroyed.

Kathy Dyson, of the Musicians Union, spoke in support of the General Council statement on the situation in Gaza, which said Israeli action amounted to “collective punishment of a population suffering the blockade”.

Shortly before the vote, Tory chief whip Michael Gove MP had warned against the dangers of boycotting Israel in a high-profile speech in London.

“What began with a campaign against Jewish goods in the past ended with a campaign against Jewish lives,” he said.

“We need to spell out that this sort of prejudice starts with the Jews but never ends with the Jews.

We need to stand united against hate, now more than ever.”' [Emphasis added]

Read more about Gove here

(And for the context of the bottom photo see here)

Wednesday, 16 February 2011

Britain's Trades Union Congress and the BDS Movement

The following article, entitled “The British Trade Union Movement, Israel, and Boycotts”, is by Ronnie Fraser, and has been issued by the Institute of Global Jewish Affairs. Ronnie Fraser is Director of the Academic Friends of Israel, which he founded in 2002. He is a doctoral student at Royal Holloway College in London, where his research focuses on the attitudes and policies of the British trade unions and the TUC toward Israel from 1945 to 1982. His essays include "Trade Union and Other Boycotts of Israel in Great Britain and Ireland" (2009), published online by the Institute of Global Jewish Affairs; "The Academic Boycott of Israel: Why Britain?" in Manfred Gerstenfeld, ed., Academics against Israel and the Jews (Jerusalem: JCPA, 2007); and "Understanding Trade Union Hostility towards Israel and Its Consequences for Anglo-Jewry," in Paul Iganski and Barry Kosmin, eds., A New Anti-Semitism? (London: JPR, 2003).

Writes Mr Fraser:

Over the past thirty years the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and member unions have regularly adopted resolutions containing anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian rhetoric. A whole generation of British left-wing trade union activists has been raised on a diet of conference motions whose only mention of Israel is in connection with its "brutality" and "oppression" of the Palestinian people. The current political position held by the leaders of Britain's working class reflects a historical bias and amnesia concerning the state of Israel.

At its 2010 Congress the TUC decided to strengthen ties with the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) and reinforce its BDS campaign against Israel. One outcome is that the TUC, which once encouraged peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, can no longer be considered a friend of Israel's trade union movement, the Histadrut.

The majority of the motions on Palestine that are submitted to annual union conferences in the UK tend not to represent the views of the general membership, but instead the political positions of the activists who are usually socialist and left-wing ideologues. This left-wing minority has made sure that in 2011 most of the major trade unions and the TUC have resolutions on their books supporting the BDS campaign against Israel as well as being affiliated to the PSC. //It is not clear whether the TUC will be as actively anti-Israeli as its PSC colleagues want it to be, especially in the current economic climate. The labor movement's priority for the foreseeable future is to concentrate on trying to save jobs and pensions especially in the UK public sector. Much will also depend on developments in the Middle East, and particularly the Israeli-Palestinian dynamics.

On the eve of the San Remo Conference in 1920, which formally recognized Britain as the mandatory authority for Palestine, the Labour Party and the TUC (Trades Union Congress), the representative body for the British trade union movement, signed a letter urging British prime minister David Lloyd George to accept the Palestine mandate and thereby make possible a Jewish national home.[1] Yet ninety years later, the TUC not only finds itself advocating sanctions against the Jewish state but is also on the brink of severing links with its fellow socialists in the Israeli labor movement and calling for the delegitimization of the state of Israel. The key moment in the changeover from support for the Jewish state to support for the Palestinian Arabs came in 1982 at the time of the First Lebanon War.

It is, however, abundantly clear that from the very beginning the TUC has given priority to British interests in the Middle East over its friendship with the Histadrut, the Israeli trade union movement. Over the past thirty years the TUC and the unions have regularly adopted resolutions containing anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian rhetoric, and a whole generation of British left-wing trade union activists has been raised on a diet of conference motions whose only mention of Israel is in connection with its "brutality" and "oppression" of the Palestinian people.

The current political position held by the leaders of Britain's working class unfortunately reflects a historical bias and amnesia concerning the state of Israel. They have disregarded the facts and are willing to boycott a country that was founded by socialist pioneers and was governed by a Labor Party for most of its history. They have forgotten that Israeli society has developed from one of the most successful socialist experiments in the world with its kibbutzim and cooperatives, as well as the strong part that the Histadrut played in the national economy. It was no wonder that in the 1950s and 1960s Israel was long seen as a role model for other newly independent, developing countries. What is clear is that it is political issues rather than trade union matters that have caused the current friction between the TUC and the Histadrut.

Britain's trade unions have always reflected the views of either the activists or the leadership. The consequence is that the majority of the motions on Palestine that are submitted to annual union conferences tend not to represent the views of the general membership, but instead the political positions of the activists who are usually socialist and left-wing ideologues. It is often these same activists who attend union conferences and vote on these motions, which decide the policy and future direction of the union.

Hence, this left-wing minority has made sure that in 2011 most of the major trade unions and the TUC have resolutions on their books supporting the global boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign directed at Israel as well as being affiliated to the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC). Hugh Lanning, PSC chairman and deputy General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, has said that:

"The PSC is committed to not only building an effective campaign for boycotting settlement goods with the TUC, but also to work to take TUC policy further, together with individual unions, many of which already have policy supporting a full boycott."[2]

The PSC, as part of the global BDS campaign, supports the establishment of a Palestinian state and the right of return for all Palestinian refugees as well as campaigning for a full boycott of Israel, which includes an economic, academic, and cultural boycott until Israel "respects international law."[3] They also have called for full recognition of Hamas as the "democratic government of Palestine" and while not explicitly supporting Palestinian terrorism they refuse to oppose it, preferring instead to assert the right of the Palestinians to "resist occupation."

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'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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