Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Dignitaries Visit Israel To Fight Palestinian Statehood Bid

A group of dignitaries including a former prime minister and a Nobel Peace Prize winner came to Israel to pledge to fight the Palestinian bid for statehood recognition at the United Nations.

The group came as part of the Friends of Israel Initiative, which seeks to rally international support for Israel.

Among them were former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who established the Quartet grouping of Middle East negotiators in Madrid in 1992; John Bolton, the former U.S. representative to the United Nations; Lord William David Trimble, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who recently served on the official commission of inquiry into Israel’s actions in the May 31, 2010 flotilla incident; and Robert Agostinelli, a French entrepreneur and a founding member of the Friends of Israel Initiative.

The group met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, opposition leader Tzipi Livni and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.

The initiative was started last year and is made up primarily of non-Jews who believe that “Israel is of fundamental importance to the future of the West,” according to the group’s website.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.