José María Aznar and his friends, when they talk about Israel, often use the word “normal.” Israel is a “normal country,” they say, and ought to be accepted as normal, and defended as normal: a “normal democratic country,” or a “normal Western country,” with virtues and flaws like any other such country. This was a big Ben-Gurion word, too, about Israel. The father of modern Israel said some version of the following: “We will know we have become a normal country when Jewish thieves and Jewish prostitutes conduct their business in Hebrew.” And they do. But Israel is far from normal in the realm of world affairs. Normality seems some far-off, high goal.
Who is the aforementioned Aznar, and who are his friends? Aznar was prime minister of Spain for two terms, 1996 to 2004. He is something relatively rare in Europe (Western Europe, that is): a Reagan-style conservative. The friends we are talking about are, not only Aznar’s friends, but friends of Israel as well — members of the Friends of Israel Initiative, which Aznar started last year. The purpose of the group is to counter what its members regard as a campaign of delegitimization against Israel. They are committed to a “relegitimization.” The cause of the West and the cause of Israel are one, they say. And the fate of the West and the fate of Israel are the same. Aznar puts it bluntly, starkly: “If we let Israel go down, we all go down.”
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