Mandag kveld var Med Israel for fred (MIFF), sammen med Israels ambassade i Oslo, vertskap for et lukket møte med Israels energiminister Silvan Shalom i Litteraturhuset. Shalom deltar tirsdag på oljemessen i Stavanger. Mandag kveld talte han om utfordringene Israel står overfor fra radikale organisasjoner.
Se hele talen her:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgWoK8TQrVU[/youtube]
Les Conrad Myrlands introduksjon av Silvan Shalom.
Dear Minister Silvan Shalom,
Welcome to Norway and welcome to Oslo. Welcome to Med Israel for fred!
MIFF is With Israel for peace. We long to see the day when all of Israel’s neighbors will accept you as Jewish state and give you secure borders, but until then we will always support you in defending yourself.
We have for the last many weeks been disgusted to see the ongoing attacks from the Islamist terror groups in Gaza against your country and people. We will use this opportunity to express our deep empathy and love to the Israeli people, and especially those who have lost their dear ones. We also express our sorrow for all the civilian deaths in Gaza, while we know that the party responsible for all the deaths is the violent Islamist group, who started the war by killing three young yeshiva students, continued the war with missiles and have not stopped breaking every cease fire since – the Hamas.
During the last couple of months, MIFF has spread Israel’s best arguments more widely around in Norway than ever before. We have been interviewed by the largest TV and radio stations. We have put full page adds in the largest newspapers, and reached the great majority of all Norwegian Facebook-users. We have sponsored a support rally for Israel outside the Parliament, and also one rally in Stavanger. Our criticism of the Norwegian media’s coverage has become so embarrassing for them, that the labour union for the editors and the journalists have invited MIFF for a debate about the issue this Wednesday.
MIFF’s success in bringing the Israeli perspective across is met with hate and support. The hatred you know from your own neighborhood. Only yesterday an information stand MIFF put up in in a town 40 kilometers west of Oslo was attacked by a Palestinian family, and the Israeli flag trampled on by a young boy. Instead of correcting the boy, his family supported him and recorded it on video.
But it is more encouraging to speak about the support. Dear Silvan Shalom. The friends you have around you here, more than hundred members of MIFF, represent not only themselves, but our 8400 members who would all have liked to be here. Only within the last three months, MIFF has got 1600 new members, and we were already the largest non-religious pro-Israel membership organization in Europe.
Tomorrow you go to Stavanger, to the Offshore Northern Seas Exhibition. We do wish you all success there, and look forward to see strong ties between Norway and Israel develop within the energy and offshore sectors.
Dear everyone, It is a pleasure to introduce to you tonight’s lecturer.
Silvan Shalom was born in Tunisia, and came to Israel one year old in 1959. He has five children. He has studied economy, accounting, public policy and law, and worked as a journalist. He was first elected to the Knesset for the Likud party in 1992, and have since served as a minister in numerous governments. Shalom has been minister of Science and Technology, Minister of Finance, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime minister several times. In the current government he is
Minister of National Infrastructure, Energy and Water,
Minister of Regional Cooperation and also
Minister of the Development of the Negev and Galile.
Tonight he will give us a lecture with the title: Israel’s challenges in facing radical organizations.
Dear Silvan Shalom,
Your colleague in the Likud and in the government, Minister of Tourism Uzi Landau, gave a lecture in a MIFF event in this very house last September. Not many pro-Israel groups in Europe, or even the world, has the honor of hosting two Israeli government ministers within a year. It is a great pleasure to have you, and we look forward to your lecture.
Please welcome Minister Silvan Shalom!
Se hele talen til Silvan Shalom under: