[Ministry of Foreign Affairs] Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni - The Foreign Minister of Israel told the AIPAC convention on Monday: Our world is changing and being divided between moderates and extremists. Extremist forces seek to transform national conflicts, which are resolvable, into an endless religious war. The extremists are not fighting for their own rights - they are fighting to deprive others of their rights. The extremists want to exploit our values - our desire to resolve conflicts peacefully and our tolerance for others. We can see the extremists headed by Iran, with its proxy Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian Authority. We need a dual strategy that empowers the moderates while, at the same time, weakening the extremists. To address extremism is to address Iran. This is a regime which calls for the destruction of a member of the United Nations, Israel - my home. This alone should deny it a place in the community of nations. It is a regime which denies the Holocaust, while threatening the world with a new one. It is a regime driven by a radical religious ideology with the goal of dominating the region, exporting terror, and preventing peace. The Iranian threat is clear not just to Israel and the Western world. Many Arab and Gulf States feel it too. They also cannot afford a nuclear Iran and, believe me, love for Israel has nothing to do with it. They know, as we do, that even if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict magically disappeared, Iran's radical ideology would remain. And they know that there is no path to a peaceful Middle East that does not involve addressing this threat. The international community must defeat this danger not for Israel's sake, but for the sake of its own security.
2007-03-13 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive