Posted on 12/25/2001 4:58:54 AM PST by BenF
Some political controversies remain the subject of debate for years to come, while others are settled by subsequent historical events. Such is the case with Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. In his latest book, "Five Days in London, May 1940" and quoting from Andrew Robert's biography of Lord Halifax ("The Holy Fox: A Life of Lord Halifax"), John Lukacs vividly describes the atmosphere surrounding the debate between Chamberlain's supporters and those who opposed his policy at the time.
"Although today, it is considered shameful and craven, the policy of appeasement once occupied almost the entire moral high ground. The word was originally synonymous with idealism, magnanimity of the victor and the willingness to right wrongs," writes Roberts.
It took only a few months to prove that the policy, which to many seemed fair, pragmatic and designed to attain "peace in our time," was nothing but an invitation to aggression. When Hitler marched his troops into Prague in March 1939, the question was settled once and for all.
After the outbreak of World War II, the United States was consumed by a debate regarding the American policy toward the belligerents - the isolationists arguing that the war was strictly a European affair and that the United States should stay out of it and not provide any assistance to Great Britain and France. That debate was settled once and for all by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, bringing the United States into the war on the side of Britain and Russia and eventually leading to the Allied victory that saved the world from Nazism.
During the debate on the Oslo agreements, the accords were presented by their supporters as an expression of idealism, magnanimity and a willingness on the part of Israel to right wrongs perpetrated against the Palestinians. They were heralded as the path to the end of violence and to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The agreements were endorsed by former U.S. president Bill Clinton, while those who signed them - Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat - were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of their contribution to peace in the Middle East.
But neither the support of the Clinton administration nor the Nobel Prizes stilled the debate in Israel regarding the agreements themselves, which were considered by many as inimical to the best interests of Israel and the Palestinians. Arafat's rejection of former prime minister Ehud Barak's egregious offers of concessions at Camp David and the Palestinian leader's subsequent launching of a war against Israel should have settled that debate once and for all, with the supporters of the Oslo agreements admitting the futility of the policy they had advocated.
Although this is evidently true for many of the supporters of this policy of appeasement among the Israeli public, as illustrated by the results of the elections of February 2001, the architects of that mistaken policy, Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin, have remained unrepentant.
Simply drawing up a balance sheet regarding the period since the Oslo agreements were signed should leave no doubt in anyone's mind. Both Israelis and Palestinians are far worse off today than they were prior to the Oslo accords. The importation of Arafat and his PLO colleagues from Tunis has resulted in violence and terror, leading to hundreds of Israeli and thousands of Palestinian casualties, while bringing ruin to the Palestinian economy.
But Peres and Beilin are not only unrepentant; they are also incorrigible. Each in his own way continues making overtures to Arafat and pleading the PLO's cause.
While Beilin's activities can be considered as an irrelevant nuisance, the same cannot be said about Peres, who officiates as Israel's foreign minister. His contacts with Arafat and his associates stand in contradiction to the declared policies of the Israeli cabinet and weaken the government's position. His negotiations with Arafat's representatives at a time when Jerusalem declares that there will be no negotiations under fire seriously undercuts the Israeli government and the credibility of its decisions. This is, presumably, the price of national unity.
But public opinion polls indicate that support for Peres' policies among the Israeli public is minimal. His contribution to the image of national unity is hardly likely to be substantial. Whatever value it may have, it may have ceased to be worth the price.
Sadly, many Freepers have failed to learn the lessons of the Chamberlain policy or believe the US should stay out of the ME "quagmire". The question is, have they truly failed to learn the lessons or do they actually promote appeasement and non-involvement knowing that it will lead to the deaths of more Jews?
We may never know the truth.
Merry Christmas to all Freeper Christians of good will.
[Humorous sidebar: during the 2000 presidential primaries, a liberal friend of mine called me a "racist," for the usual reasons they call conservatives that. I said, wait a minute, how can you call me a racist when I support a black man for president (Keyes) and I worship a JEW??]
I wish that more people knew the history and the facts of the origins of the state of Israel and of the background.
Hear, hear!
I can just see the look on his face. Give yourself an attaboy.
ATTABOY
The short story is that Western Palestine was way under populated in 1870 when Jews started coming in great numbers. Maybe 200,000 Muslims lived in what is today's Israel. Some Christians and Jews lived there too. Jews came to a desolate land with plenty of room for those who could improve it (such as draining swamps) and make it yield.
As Jews immigrated to Palestine so did Arabs
Israel is our strategic ally; Judaism is our moral ally. The left can't abide with either of these propositions.
BTW, I am not Jewish, for those who don't know me.
I don't know much about Chamberlain and his motives here; but I dimly recall mention that the concessions were made to purchase time. During and after the agreement England mobilized and was better able to meet the fully developed and mechanized German army when the inevitable came about.
Has anyone heard this? I can cite no sources off the top of my head.
Thanks.
Perhaps the British used the time to arm, but is sure as heck didn't help them deal better with the German Army. It is a little known fact that the Allies, at the start of the German invasion of Belgium and France, had more men, more tanks and more planes than the Germans.
The difference is not that the Germans were more mechnized, in the sense of having more machines. It is that they used the machines they had more efficiently, and that they had far greater eagerness to fight. Especially when compared to the French. (Who, to be perfectly fair, had performed very bravely in WWI, and in the process essentially destroyed their national morale. They, quite understandably, just could not face a repetition 20 years later.)
The British may have had more tanks and artillery than if the war had come in 1938, but they left them all on the beach at Dunkirk.
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