Daphne Anson

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)

Friday, 11 May 2012

Israel's National Unity Government & The Peace Process

Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer has a new article that comes via the antipodean J-Wire service. It's entitled "Palestine – Israel has had enough".

Writes David Singer:

'The Palestinian Authority’s decision to unilaterally seek Palestinian statehood at the United Nations and UNESCO – in breach of its obligations under the Oslo Accords and the Roadmap – has propelled Benjamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz into forming Israel’s government of national unity this week.

This was made abundantly clear when one of the four priorities announced by both leaders was "to move forward responsibly in the peace process".

With the new Government now controlling 78% of the votes in the Knesset, a new offer is set to be made by Israel to the Palestinian Authority in a final endeavour to resolve the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza between Jews and Arabs.

Israel has endured the machinations of the Palestinian Authority for the last 19 years. Its continuing obduracy in demanding – as a minimum – a Palestinian State equal in size to 100% of the West Bank and Gaza – with its capital in Jerusalem – has been a major stumbling block in ending the conflict.

Successive Israeli Prime Ministers of differing political persuasions have laboured in vain to try and achieve an equitable division of these territories between Israel and the Palestinian Authority within the context of a negotiated peace treaty.

Refusing to budge from 100% is hardly a basis on which anyone can ever hope to successfully negotiate.

The Palestinian Authority will now pay dearly for its mistake in breaking away from the Oslo Accords and the Roadmap to unilaterally seek recognition of statehood at the United Nations and UNESCO in September and October 2011.

These disastrous diplomatic forays were made outside – and in breach of – the negotiating framework established by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap – which provided in Clause XXXI (7) of the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip:

"Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations."

President Obama’s attempt to counsel the Palestinian Authority against taking such action was made very clear when addressing world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly:

"Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the U.N. If it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now."

Notwithstanding the threat by America to veto any such move for statehood – the application was pressed – only to find it ignominiously rejected before it was even voted on by the Security Council.

Undeterred - the Palestinian Authority then sought international recognition of Palestinian statehood at UNESCO – where it succeeded – despite Israel and America’s strong opposition.

America immediately suspended the payment its membership dues to UNESCO under a domestic 1994 law on its statute books - which prohibited payments to

"any affiliated organization of the United Nations which grants full membership as a state to any organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood."

Palestine’s application did not comply with the internationally recognized attributes of statehood laid down in the Montevideo Convention 1933 – yet UNESCO had recognized Palestinian statehood in breach of such well established international law.

None of the 194 member states of UNESCO – including Israel and America – has taken any steps since to try and reverse UNESCO’s unlawful decision or withdraw its delegates from UNESCO in protest – even though 87 of them did not affirmatively vote for Palestine‘s admission as a member state of UNESCO.

Their inaction amounts to recognition of Palestinian statehood and an end to Palestinian homelessness – resulting in the achievement of the two state solution outside the Oslo Accords and the Roadmap.

This state of Palestine is not required to be demilitarized nor recognize Israel as the Jewish State – as Israel had been demanding as conditions for its recognition of a Palestinian State. [Emphasis added]

So where is Israel going to go from here in "moving forward responsibly in the peace process"?

A clue can be found in the following views expressed by Mofaz in November 2009 – which remain equally relevant in 2012:

"Today in Gaza, 100% of the territory and 100% of the population is under Hamas control.

In the West Bank, there are three types of areas; Area A, B, and C.

Palestinians have security and civilian responsibility in Area A.

In Area B, Israel has security responsibility, the Palestinians have civilian sovereignty.

Security and civilian issues are controlled by Israel in Area C

Today, Areas A and B represent 40% of the West Bank territory and 99.2% of the Palestinian population. But there is no continuity between the Palestinians in Areas A and B.

I am suggesting adding 20% of Area C to give full continuity to the Palestinian state, with 60% of the territory in the West Bank and 99% of the population."

On Jerusalem,Mofaz was very definite:

"The issue of Jerusalem should be discussed in a very sensitive way. There is no chance to divide Jerusalem. It will remain united as the capital of the state of Israel and we have to find a way to handle the daily life of the Jewish and Palestinian people in Jerusalem."

On the vexed issue of building in Jewish settlements in the West Bank during negotiations, Mofaz was clear:

"We will not freeze the life or building in Ma’ale Adumim, Gush Etzion, Efrat, Ariel and some others, all of which are known as the settlement blocs.

Regarding the areas that will be the future Palestinian state, I believe that we should consider the continuation of the life of the people, but we should not build in this area because it will be under the sovereignty and responsibility of the Palestinian state.

This makes it very clear which areas we will continue to build in and which we should allow daily life to continue but without any building."

Mofaz’s views – if accepted by Netanyahu – will form the basis for a final offer that Israel will be making to the Palestinian Authority. [Emphasis added]

No doubt such offer will be rejected – because it would mean a substantial diminution in territory from the last offer made by Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert in 2008 – and several even more attractive offers made and rejected in 1937, 1947 and 2000.

Israel would be totally justified in this decision – since it is now facing a militarized Palestinian State that does not recognize Israel as the Jewish State.

For Israel – the refusal of such an offer would signal that it is time to annex Area C, retain security control in Area B – and let the state of Palestine exercise its new found sovereignty in Areas A, B and Gaza.

Israel’s national unity government clearly signals that it is not in a mood to play the Palestinian Authority’s game any more.'

En France, l'écriture sur le mur

Ever since Napoleon emancipated French Jewry – the Sephardim of the south-west first and then the Askenazim of the north-east – citizens of the Jewish faith have served the Republic well. There were three Jews on General de Gaulle's Algiers-based Comité français de la Libération Nationale, which kept the anti-Nazi struggle alive during the dark days of Vichy; two of these men (René Mayer and Pierre Mendes-France) later served terms as France's prime minister during the 1950s, and there have been many Jewish public figures (including 1930s premier Leon Blum) before and since.

It's been a striking fact of modern history that, in marked contrast to, say, Britons, Germans, and Italians, French people seldom emigrate, the French Canadians being a notable exception to this rule.

However, for increasing numbers of French Jews, that remain-at-home trend seem about to change.

"I cannot recall having seen such a massive number of people interested in aliyah since the days when lines of people stretched out of the Israeli embassy in Moscow," remarked Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky, who attended the Jewish Agency's aliya fair in Paris (held last Sunday, presidential election day), which this year attracted a record number of visitors – 5000 compared to the usual 2000.

Given recent events, including horrific Islamist violence against Jews of which the massacre at the Ozar HaTorah school in Toulouse is the most recent example, which, given its nature, even leftist mainstream media outlets like the BBC (so prone to turn a blind eye to Muslim-on-Jew violence) could not ignore, it is hardly surprising that an increasing number of France's 500,000-strong Jewish community is concluding that it might be best to find a haven away from Eurabia.

They have noticed the writing on the wall. (See also here)

Here, for instance, are antisemitic Israel-haters who following the announcement of Nicolas Sarkosy's defeat at the polls celebrated outside the Bastille:

French a tad rusty? Despair not! For further details see here and (especially, as it's choc-a-bloc with photos) here

Thursday, 10 May 2012

"Our Capital Shall Be Jerusalem" (video)

So thunders an Egyptian cleric representing the Muslim Brotherhood's presidential candidate, in describing his vision of an Islamic Caliphate. The Brotherhood is bad news for Egyptian women, bad news for the West, and of course bad news for Israel. I wonder whether the West's human ostriches, and such pundits as Al Beeb's "Middle East editor" Jeremy Bowen, can watch this video (which has been doing the rounds of the blogosphere) and still describe the Brotherhood as moderate.

"The Raw Throbbing Nerve Underneath The Skin": Daniel Greenfield On The Persistence Of Antisemitism & How The Left Promotes It

"The Nazis were open in their racial animus, while Islam and the left have pretended that their opposition was limited to Jewish ideas, to Judaism and Zionism, but while their persecution of Jews has been sharpest toward those who profess Jewish ideas, that never stopped them from persecuting even Jewish fellow-travelers and dhimmis,"observes one of the prophets for our time, Daniel Greenfield, in an article that should make every Palestine Solidarity Campaign member and BDSer, and many a BBC and Guardian reporter, hang their head in shame.

"The left begins by denying that it is Anti-Semitic, then it denies that the Jews are a race, finally it denies that hating them is wrong. Islam’s chief contribution has been to provide a justification for progressive Anti-Semitism by once again painting the Jews as members of an oppressor group. And the left has repaid the favor by manufacturing an Islamophobia crisis to protect Islamic racism from criticism while deflecting the accusations of racism as Islamophobic.

Anti-Semitism is racism. It is arguably the most ancient form of racism dating back far to the first days of recorded human history. Even as the left prides itself on its tolerance and humanism, it sinks back into a mire of hatred as old as the pyramids. The persecution of the Jews has always been racial. It is still racial. That racial hatred may be dressed up in conspiracy theories about international Jewish power and an obsessive campaign against the Jewish State, but friction always exposes the root of the hatred, the raw throbbing nerve underneath the skin."

Read the entire article here

Wednesday, 9 May 2012

Irish Musicians Cancel Israel Gig & The IDF Is Defamed In Dublin

Regrettably, Irish group Dervish has bowed to pressure from anti-Israel campaigners in Ireland and cancelled their planned gig in Israel in June.

Observes the justifiably outraged Irish Justice Minister Alan Shatter:

"The Irish Palestinian Solidarity Group's [sic; presumably the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign] action in directing its members to 'target' the website of the musical group Dervish in order to intimidate the group into cancelling their planned concerts in Israel is nothing other than cyberbullying.

The invitation to Dervish to perform in Israel came from a fellow musician who worked to bridge divides between people through music for much of his life and the objective of the concerts was 'to promote love between two divided communities'.

It is absolutely understandable that the group, in the face of an 'avalanche of negativity' and 'venom' on social media websites took the decision to cancel their concerts -- but it is a great pity that the bullying tactics of the IPSG worked.

If the IPSG were in any way interested in promoting peace and reconciliation in a troubled part of the world they would recognise the value of cultural and artistic exchanges and the contribution such events make to fostering understanding and tolerance. But, unfortunately, IPSG's interest is not in peace and reconciliation."

He pertinently added that the Irish anti-Israel activists ignore

"the constitutional rights of Irish citizens and those who live in this State to get on with their lives, to travel and to perform around the world free from bullying, intimidation and discrimination.

It is particularly extraordinary that the orchestrated campaign targeted at Dervish occurred at a time when thousands have lost their lives in Syria and the IPSG [sic] have remained silent about the crimes against humanity being committed there."

If Norway is, by repute at any rate, the most antisemitic nation in Europe, then sections of the Emerald Isle's population cannot be far behind. If they are not, it's no thanks to the obsessive Israel-haters who ply their obnoxious trade in public with fanatical regularity, as we've seen in several videos over the years.

Here are our old friends from the dastardly Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, defaming Israel in Grafton Street, Dublin. While one (cultural boycott officer Raymond Deane) blares anti-Israel propaganda through a megaphone, a travesty of a "theatrical performance" is acted out, with a harsh-voiced Israel-demoniser dressed, it appears, in British army uniform, playing his Israel-defaming part with particular gusto.

"You are not human" is one of the insults that this fake IDF officer hurls at a "Palestinian".

As one disgusted commenter on YouTube observes:

'Is blowing yourself up in the middle of a bus, killing dozens of children, women, old people is part of the show. I wonder?

By the way, 2 of the more recent victims of Arab terrorism in Israel were a British (Christian) woman who was dead when a Palestinian "freedom fighter" blew himself in a bus stop in Jerusalem, and an American (Christian) tourist who hiked with her British (Christian) friend in the Jerusalem mountains. I'm sure this can be a great addition to this show.'

Tuesday, 8 May 2012

"When We Seek The Help Of Our Arab Brothers ... It Is In Order To Continue To Wage Jihad": Hamas Bigwig (video)

Who are the Palestinians? Hamas's interior minister Fathi Hammad has an emphatic answer:

Hat tip: reader Rita

Omar Word! Barghouti Insults the "White Race"

"I won't take this from a white person, lecturing us about non-violence," Omar Barghouti tells an audience of socialist faithful in Chicago (note the sycophantic applause). The "white race" is the most violent race in history, declares the daddy of the BDS movement, in a blatant display of racist stereotyping ...

Tut, tut. Racism in the BDS ranks!
It seems even some BDS lefties are uncomfortable.
Here is a good take on the situation.

'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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