Vaclav Havel, Friend of Israel By Aigle Middle East • December 2011 • Views: 963 At a time when anti-Israel activists are broadening their assault on Israel to also target not only the country but also its foreign supporters, it’s worth noting the principled pro-Israel stand taken by Vaclav Havel. Havel, the celebrated Czech intellectual, dissident and politician who died last Sunday, was a founding member of the Friends of Israel Initiative, founded “out of a sense of deep concern about the unprecedented campaign of deligitimation against Israel waged by the enemies of the Jewish State and, perversely, supported by numerous international institutions.”