Friends of Israel Initiative PEACE FOR PEACE

The true sense of having a State of Israel is having a Jewish State: a State where the Jewish people have the necessary and sufficient means to defend themselves from their enemies should the occasion arise. That is the prime significance of Israel’s creation in 1948 and that is what the Arab world and the Palestinians should understand, accept and come to terms with at every level. Secondly, they should realise that a solution can only be the product of a negotiation based on fairness, commitment and mutual trust. The parties involved, all of them, should accept sacrifices for the sake of a long-lasting and durable outcome. If it is only one side that gives in, then there will be no solution, ever. And if it is only Israel that is subjected to demands, the peace process will go nowhere.

Third, peace between Israelis and Palestinians is not dependent upon a question of territory: it is a matter of unequivocally accepting the other side's right to exist. Israel accepts a Palestinian State for the Palestinians, but the latter are determined not to accept that Israel is the Jewish State. If the Jewish nature of the State of Israel were to be recognised, territorial disputes would very quickly become of only secondary importance.

Fourth, the obsession of the Palestinians and of a significant part of the international community on defining and drawing frontiers must be placed in the proper context. Israel’s experience with the view that peace can only be achieved by making territorial concessions has not been good. Its successive withdrawals from territories that neighbour Israel have only brought about more violence and the need to fight once again to ensure its security. Consequently, any frontier agreed upon as a result of the negotiations must be secure and capable of being defended, because if not Israel will sooner or later be forced to ensure it is made safe. Peace cannot put security at risk.

Finally, should an accord be reached, the parties must accept that it is a definitive solution, not the starting point for further concessions. An agreement must not be allowed to become the springboard for yet more demands.

Over the past few years the Palestinians have voluntarily moved away from the path of negotiation, hiding behind all manner of excuses. They believe the international community will offer them all they want and that their interests will be better served by not negotiating with Israel. Hence, they need make no concessions. However, if we really want to promote a peace accord it is high time for the international community, particularly the Quartet, to make them see that this is not the way forward. Palestinians must resolve their quarrel with Israel on the negotiating table and once and for all. The worst possible approach for the Palestinians to gain their own State is to continue with their current policy of refusing to talk to the government in Jerusalem and to push for the UN to embrace their unilateral declaration of independence.

Great Expectations

As revolts break out in different parts of the Arab world against despotic and corrupt rulers, it is immediately being assumed that not only the intentions of the protesters are democratic but also that the outcome will necessarily be democracy.
Amidst surprising calls for military intervention from some who only a few years ago were vociferously opposed to intervention against another despot, Israel is castigated for being prudent in the face of all this turmoil. Since it signed the peace agreement with Egypt in 1979, Israel's defence budget has shrunk from 24% of its GDP to 9% and it is not unreasonable for it to exercise caution and to be concerned for its security in highly volatile circumstances. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comments in his first interview for two years to the British media, the storm in the Middle East and North Africa 'is not about us' but 'that's not to say we won't be put back in the centre of the picture'. Charles Moore adds: 'Bellicosity against Israel could easily become, once again, the sole uniting force in a fractured Arab world

What is so frequently and wilfully ignored is that the only country in the Middle East and North Africa that has really striven to live by democratic ideals and to live in peace is the very same State of Israel that is the subject of a globally-orchestrated campaign of delegitimation; a campaign, furthermore, to which many of those who have such high hopes for the revolts in the Arab world are firmly committed.
A welcome voice of dissent is that of George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center and a founder-member of the Friends of Israel Initiative. Weigel wrote some years ago that Christianity and its Jewish parent have the conviction 'the world is intelligible and that people of reason and goodwill can build decent societies, based on reasonable standards of behavior'. For this reason, in an article especially commissioned for the FOII he explains very convincingly why Catholics around the world should be inspired to stand up for Israel as a bulwark of pluralist democracy, freedom and justice.
While it is arguable that too much is being expected from the Arab world, Israel is routinely credited with too little.

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

At times of uncertainty it is imperative to ask ourselves the right questions if we want to find the right answers to the problems that might lie ahead. For instance, if prompted to choose between stability and instability, most people would opt for stability, but that is simply not the right question to ask in the face of the changes, unrest and revolts that are currently underway in North Africa and parts of the Middle East. The region's stability has been broken; it is something of the past period. As Natan Sharansky eloquently said, no dictatorship can last forever, not even the more benign ones. Thus, the question to ask now should be: what do we want from this social and political earthquake, and can we do something to help in order to obtain the results we want and avoid those that are undesirable or detrimental to our own interests?
Secondly, asking –as many are doing– whether all of this could have happened if an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement had already been in force is clearly misleading. The revolts arise from the frustration of the Arab people with the conditions they have to live in, not out of any concern about the lack of a Palestinian State. Furthermore, linking the changes underway in the whole region with the peace process will make the potential for real change hostage to the progress being made in bilateral negotiations that have nothing to do with the legitimate aspirations of a whole series of peoples, from Morocco to Pakistan. Even worse, placing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process at centre stage now will make any agreement much more difficult to reach. Israel's security requirements will depend on the outcome of these processes, while the Palestinian State's requirements will also be conditioned by the resulting political landscape once the dust has settled.
Finally, now that the Pope has publicly declared that the Jews were not responsible for the death of Christ and that Prime Minister Netanyahu has accepted their exoneration as a historic leap forward by the Roman Catholic Church, we should stop asking ourselves what else needs to be said to close a gap that is no longer reasonable or sustainable. Judaism and Christianity are facing the same challenges and enemies, and the time has come to forge a new strategic relation in order to defend our common values before those who would like to see them destroyed. As religious minorities in a sea of radical secularism, as tolerant people challenged by intolerant fundamentalism, our future will depend on our ability to act together with a clear and shared vision. The right question to ask is how we are to achieve this.

If Israel Goes Down, We All Go Down; Anger over Gaza is a distraction. We cannot forget that Israel is the West’s best ally in a turbulent region.

Published in The Times, June 17th 2010

For far too long now it has been unfashionable in Europe to speak up for Israel. In
the wake of the recent incident on board a ship full of anti-Israeli activists in the
Mediterranean, it is hard to think of a more unpopular cause to champion.

WSJ: Israel: A Normal Country

The following statement has been signed by Jose Maria Aznar, David Trimble, John R. Bolton, Alejandro Toledo, Marcello Pera, Andrew Roberts, Fiamma Nirenstein, George Weigel, Robert F. Agostinelli and Carlos Bustelo:

2010-07-08 by Founder Members

Israel is a Western democracy and a normal country. Nonetheless, Israel has faced abnormal circumstances since its inception. In fact, Israel is the only Western democracy whose existence has been questioned by force, and whose legitimacy is still being questioned independently of its actions.

An inconvenient truth; On December 8, 2009, the historian Andrew Roberts delivered a remarkable address at the annual dinner of the Anglo-Israel Association. ICJS reproduces it here in full, with no further comment.)

My Lords, Ladies & Gentlemen,

It’s a great honour to be invited to address you, especially on this the 60th anniversary of AIA, and I’d like to take the opportunity of this anniversary to look at the overall story of the relationship between Britain and Israel, and to try to strip away some of the myths.

An historian’s point of view

I would like to speak to you today as an historian, because it seems to me that the State of Israel has packed more history into her 62 years on the planet than many other nations have in six hundred. There are many surprising things about this tiny, feisty, brave nation the size of Wales, but the most astonishing is that she has survived at all. The very day after the new state was established, she was invaded by the armies of no fewer than five Arab countries, and she has been struggling for her right to life ever since. And that is what we are here for today, to reiterate Israel’s right to self-defence, inherent in all legitimate countries.

We in the West need to regain moral clarity Israel is a fundamental constituent of the West. If Israel is lost, then we are all lost.

Israel may be located in the Middle East, but it is an integral part of the West. The one thing setting it apart from the rest is its status as the only democracy whose existence has been questioned since inception.

It is easy to blame Israel for all the evils in the Arab world and some are even ready to sacrifice the future of Israel if a new understanding with the Muslim world were to be achieved in return. However, to weaken Israel is a serious mistake since it is our first line of defence in the region; if Israel fell into the hands of its enemies, the West as we know it would cease to exist.

To defend Israel’s right to exist in peace and within defensible borders requires a moral clarity that has mainly gone lost in Europe - this spectre is also looming over the United States. To place Israel as a key component of the West’s fate - and it is - is to acknowledge that enemies are not chosen according to one’s liking and that the enemies of freedom are out there; to say that Israel, with virtues and flaws, has the right to be treated as any other liberal democracy, requires that we acknowledge as our own the values and trademarks in which we have been forged throughout the centuries.

Motivated by the necessity of reconstituting our own Western values, expressing deep concern about the contemporary wave of ideological and civilisational aggression against the state of Israel, and mindful that Israel’s strength is our strength and Israel’s weakness is our weakness, I have launched the Friends of Israel Initiative with the help of some very prominent people: Andrew Roberts, John Bolton, Alejandro Toledo, Marcello Pera, Robert Agostinelli.

Israel, I repeat, is a fundamental constituent of the West. The West is what it is, thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish part of those roots is upturned and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Today, to defend Israel is to defend the West. With this initiative we aspire to make that reality ever more patent.

José María Aznar was Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004

http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/comment/36089/we-west-need-regain-moral-clarity

Speech at the British parliament: Israel and human rights Israel, our Forefather

The culture of human rights was born and has flourished in those countries that have been shaped by Judeo-Christianity. Israel and the Jews are therefore central to the greatest political achievements of the West.

2010-07-23 by Marcello Pera

Speech to World Jewish Congress in Jerusalem Defending Israel to Defend Ourselves

Israel today is nothing less than essential to us, not only because the Jewish state is located in the very region where the strategic tectonic plates collide, but because Israel is one of the few nations willing to pay a price for its survival.

2010-09-01 by Jose Maria Aznar

Speech announcing launch of Friends of Israel Initiative in Washington DC

The following is the text of a speech delivered to more than 70 guests, friends and supporters of the Friends of Israel Initiative in Washington DC by Jose Maria Aznar.

2010-09-14 by Jose Maria Aznar

U.S. Congressional Resolution supporting Friends of Israel Initiative

HCON 315 IH
 

111th CONGRESS
 

2d Session

H. CON. RES. 315

Recognizing the formation and supporting the objectives of the Friends of Israel Initiative.