Friends of Israel petition

Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has put forth a petition in support of Israel.

The Friends of Israel have joined together in a new international initiative on the basis of the following convictions:

1. Israel is a Western country...
2. Israel´s right to exist should not be questioned. ...
3. Israel, as a sovereign country, has the right to self-defense. ...
4. Israel is on our side. ...
5. We believe in peace, but peace in the Middle East is not just about Israel and the Palestinians....
6. We share the same threats and challenges....
7. Believing that the continuous deligitimation of Israel has a great deal of responsibility in raising an aggressive and dangerous anti-semitism, in a spirit of solidarity with the State of Israel, and in recognition that we, the Western nations, must stand together lest we fall together, we therefore launch the Friends of Israel Initiative to do the following:
   1. To combat the deligitimization of the State of Israel at home, abroad and inside the institutions of the international community.
   2. To publicly show our solidarity with Israel’s democratic institutions – the legitimate expression of the Jewish people’s millennial aspiration to live in peace and freedom in its national homeland.
   3. To support Israel’s inalienable right to secure borders unmolested by terrorists or tyrannical regimes so that its citizens can continue living with the same guarantees that our own societies enjoy.
   4. To consistently and firmly oppose the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran.
   5. To work to ensure that Israel is fully accepted as a normal Western country, an essential and indivisible part of the Western world to which we belong.
   6. To reaffirm the value of the religious, moral, and cultural Judeo-Christian heritage as the main source of the liberal and democratic Western societies.