A new voice for Israel

16.09. 2010

http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000758.html

The following are extracts of remarks by Jose María Aznar, at the US launch of the Friends of Israel Initiative on September 14, 2010 in Washington, D.C. Nobody has summarized the international attack against Israel better, and nobody has made a more eloquent case for Israel. These remarks deserve the widest possible publicity [A.I.]

..., Israel is under a new kind of attack. Not conventional war as in 1948, 56, 67 or 73. Not terrorism as we saw in the 70s, 80s and 90s. But a new kind of attack – an attack on Israel legitimacy, on her right to exist. A "soft-war", where many of its adversaries are employing legal tricks, multinational bodies, and an army of dubious NGO's to present internationally Israel as an illegitimate state, as a barbarian state, a state that should be isolated and converted into a pariah state.

We think this is intolerable. It is unjust, morally wrong, and a strategic risk -- not only for Israel and its people -- but for all of us.

Israel is an integral part of the West, and the weaker it is, the weaker the entire West will be perceived to be.

Even if we want to turn away from the traumas of 9/11, we simply do not have the luxury to choose our enemies. As Senators Baker, Dole, Daschle and Mitchell made clear in their latest report, published 5 days ago. by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the threat to our way of life from radical Islamists is real, and it has not yet been eliminated.

Let me be clear. We don't want in any case to defend any particular Israeli government or any particular set of policies or any particular party. Israelis' institutions are mature enough to defend their choices. We want to stand up for the right of Israel to exist. Judaeo-Christian values form the roots of our civilization. Delegitimizing Israel undermines our identity, warps our values and put at risk what we are and who we are.

So, dear friends, it is not only the threat that if Israel goes down, which, make no mistake, many of its enemies would like to see happen, we all go down. It is that letting Israel be demonized will lead to the deligitimation of our own cherished values. If Israel were to disappear by the force of its enemies, I sincerely doubt the West could remain as we know it.

So, I conclude: Is it craziness for a group, as I said before, of mostly Europeans and non-Jews, to say: "Enough. Stop this nonsense of making Israel responsible for all the problems in the region, if not beyond? Enough of the short-sightedness which refuses to see Israel as a cornerstone of our Western civilization?"

We do believe that far from it, it is vital. For America, for the West, for Israel. And for our children and grandchildren and the world they will inherit. Because there is still right and wrong in this complicated world. And if we allow those fundamentals to be blurred and eroded and confused, we will all be dangerously adrift.

Defending Israel today means strengthening the West, standing up for our values, and their right to exist as a normal country, a fellow democracy and a celebrated ally in our great western alliance.

I hope that you will share our vision, and will help us in bringing reason and decency back to the discussion concerning Israel.

Thank you very much

Jose María Aznar