“We have no interest in oppressing other people. … It is not so much the country of Czechoslovakia; it is rather its leader, Edvard Benes….He has led a reign of terror. … We have displayed a truly unexampled patience, but I am no longer willing to remain inactive while this madman ill-treats millions of human beings.
–Adolf Hitler, September 26, 1938
Visiting the Czech Republic prompts thoughts of the 1938 Munich agreement. Analogies with Nazism and the 1930s are overused today, made even more tasteless and cliché-ridden by the fact that many of those using them know very little about the situations then and now.
Beyond the simple narrative usually offered, a more detailed analysis shows a number of points that fit both situations better than people realize. That’s true despite the very important differences between the two cases.
After all, this pattern will not be repeated today. Western countries genuinely don’t want to sell Israel out. The balance of forces favors Israel; the West isn’t really afraid of direct war; the “other side” is badly divided; and Israel is much stronger than Czechoslovakia and is unwilling to sacrifice itself.
Still there are lessons to be learned. Let’s look at the 1938 crisis and its relationship with today from a different standpoint.
Bad cause, good cover story
There was a large ethnic German minority in Czechoslovakia. These people, who lived in an area strategically important for Czech defense, certainly had some legitimate grievances. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain actually had some sympathy for the “suffering” Germans. Hitler didn’t just rant and rave. He knew, like radical regimes and movements today, how to play the victim.
Today, many people cannot believe that a humanitarian issue for which a real case can be made might also block understanding of a wider danger and the creation of a worse humanitarian issue.
The Palestinians are suffering, they say. The Palestinians want a state. These are problems worthy of a solution, but what kind of a solution? Like saying the proletariat has poor living conditions or bigotry against Muslims is a bad thing, these are true enough statements — but not ones that should overwhelm common sense and a legitimate self-interest.
Even the detail of blaming Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s current government has a parallel in the 1938 case: the problem is portrayed as the intransigence of Benes, rather than that of Czechoslovakia as a whole. (Incidentally, after 1945 when he returned to power, Benes expelled by law virtually all of the country’s Hungarian and German minorities.)
The Germans were victimized by an unfair diplomatic settlement after World War I. Guilt feelings, then as now, led the West to make some dangerous mistakes. Beware of aggressors and would-be committers of genocide asking for your sympathy.
Resentment for the “troublemaker,” who is just trying to survive
It is forgotten how much antagonism there was at the time against Czechoslovakia.
Western leaders made statements that it was all the fault of Czech President Edvard Beneš that there wasn’t peace, just like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is blamed today. In each case, the question was asked: Should this silly little stiff-necked people that is greedy for territory and doesn’t know its own interests endanger our very existence?
Chamberlain said in a radio interview:
How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is, that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.
Contemporary terrorism or revolutionary Islamism or hatred of the West among Arabs and Muslims is blamed on Israel. One is going to hate somebody who unnecessarily endangers your life and well-being. This easily passes over into anti-Semitism: How dare that [expletive deleted] little country — to quote statements made in private by French and British diplomats in recent years — risk the fate of the world?
Those same statements were made about Czechoslovakia.
Misunderstanding the enemy’s ideology, means, and goals
Just as today governments have banned phrases like “the war on terrorism” or “the war on revolutionary Islamism,” so the British and French governments of the time refused to think about a “war on fascism,” “war on Nazism,” or “war on German imperialism.”
Not understanding the enemy — its nature, goals, and ideology — produced a massive miscalculation. Chamberlain believed that Hitler just wanted dominance over Czechoslovakia, and that there would be no more claims. In the same manner, much of the media, university, government complex (MUG) of today thinks that an independent Palestinian state would be the end of history — after which there would be no more aggression, claims, demands, or crises.
You say: “The Palestinians are suffering.” Where, pray tell, are they suffering? Maybe in Gaza, at the hands of Hamas, maybe in Judea and Samaria at the hands of the P.A., maybe in Jordan at the hands of Hashemite Kingdom, but not in Israel (where I presume they could also be called, Palestinian Arabs, as opposed to Palestinian Jews).
Half of the people in the world today will happily sail around the globe in a leaky boat only to live the life of Arabs in Gaza. What those in Gaza get from “donors” for nothing but murder exceeds hard-earned wages in many places in the World.
Adolf Hitler was the first person in the last century to understand the nature of public relations in warfare. He didn’t have the record in the Czech crisis that would have exposed him for the warlord he was, so he was able to advance his war aims through adroit political warfare that exposed the Czech weaknesses and allowed him in the end to their existence without having fired a shot. The Czechs were ill-equipped to understand this and fight back. That is why they lost; politics like Nature, abhors a vacuum. The principal lesson of the Czech crisis is a war can be fought on other battlefields. With a determined adversary, you have two choices: you can tell your side of the story, discredit your enemy and preserve your national interests and survive. Or you can concede the high ground, give the people the impression you are at fault for what’s happening to you and in a word, curl up and die.
That is very much, even though the circumstances are different, relevant to Israel’s situation today.
“Adolf Hitler was the first person in the last century to understand the nature of public relations in warfare.”
Woodrow Wilson’s Propaganda came before Hitler.. just saying..
What happened to the Czechs in 1938 at the hands of Germany is identical to what happened to the Serbs in the 1990s/2000s at the hands of the Muslims and Croats in the Balkans, again with the assistance of Germany.
1389 AD – Die Schlacht auf dem Amselfeld in Kosovo. Milosevic was guilty, nobody else.
Barry, I was born in a dp camp. Lost most of my extended family, My mother (OBM), an auschwitz ‘guest’, was the sole survivor of her extended family. my father (OBM) lost most of his extended family.
I don’t give a rats ass about the fakestinians. Let’s stop saying that they have any rights to Eretz Yisroel. they don’t! When someone comes to kill you – kill them, that’s not manslaughter, that’s saving your own life.
Amen!
Rats asswise!
Scum are scum. I am not Jewish. I am Irish, English, and German; and Episcopalian. My first American ancestors came over in 1623. But right is right, and these people are a pestilence upon the world. Their own brethren disown them because they are too much trouble. “Let’s dump these jerks on the Jews. The worst that can happen is the Jews finally spank them, and then we can accuse them of being bad.”
Well, American Jews. I hope you’re happy voting Obama in. It opened the door to semi-rational Arabs attempting new and provocative techniques. With that schmuck in the White House, it might just work.
I hope your nukes work as well as I think. Good luck.
While recalling Hitler’s maneuverings with regards to Czechoslovakia, let us not forget that the “moderate peace partner” in the Middle East is the direct progeny of Hitler’s ideology. The “Palestinian Authority” is merely the “Palestine Liberation Organization,” which was formed by Yasser Arafat, the nephew of Hitler’s guest, recruiter, and cheerleader the Grand Mufti.
The “Palestine Liberation Organization” was formed in 1964 not to “liberate” the West Bank and Gaza, which were then in Arab hands, but to “liberate” Israel proper—i.e., to wipe out Israel and the Jews in it. That was their goal then, and it remains their goal now. They are the “moderate peace partner” because their stated goal is merely to render the Land of Israel judenrein, while Hamas’ goal is to kill all Jews throughout the world.
Mandate Palestine was partitioned into Jewish and Arab areas when the British created the Emirate of Transjordan in 1921; my 1926 atlas describes the area now known as “Jordan” as “that portion of Palestine closed to Jewish settlement.” Even today, the media in rare moments of honesty will occasionally state that the population of Jordan is “predominantly Palestinian.” Of course it is; the colonialist state of Jordan, created by the fiat of a dying Western empire, comprises the bulk of Mandate Palestine.
It is past time to recognize that the original partition is the only sensible one; that “the two-state solution” was realized in 1948; that Jordan, when it ceded its claim to the West Bank following the Six-Day War gave Israel sovereignty over land that was originally contemplated as part of Israel under the original Mandate; and that any “right of return” that “Palestinian” Arabs may wish to assert must be exercised in Jordan or not at all.
Great comment Buzzsawmonkee. Agree 100%.
Thank you. One of the lies that is continually perpetuated in discussions of the Middle East is that Israel is “a colonialist state.”
To the contrary, Israel is the only non-colonialist state in the region. Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia were all formed from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire by Western imperialist powers. Egypt, while not a formal colony of the British, was a British Empire satellite. Turkey—”modern” Turkey—was also an Ottoman remnant. None of these states—nor Iraq—can be considered more than 30 years older than Israel; all of them were post-WWI creations, not “ancient nations” whose age-old tranquility was disrupted by the discordant insertion of Jews.
Israel was built, starting in the late 19th century, in the teeth of imperial opposition—first, in spite of Ottoman decrees against Jews owning land, later against the obstruction of the British. It is the state with the most anti-colonial, least colonialist, history in the region—which is precisely why it is accused of the opposite.
That was very well said Buzzsawmonkey! It clarifies the lies being espoused by Israel’s enemies.
I agree with the others, great comments Buzzsawmonkey. You should have your own blog.
Bravo Zulu. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
cheers
eon
Thanks, excellent comment.
Barry, it’s arguable that the Germans were the victims of an unjust settlement as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. Without going into all of the particulars, let me just say that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that Germany forced Russia to sign was far more harsh than anything that Germany dealt with under the terms of Versailles. And If the security terms of the Versailles Treaty had been enforced until Germany matured into a democratic state that was not hell-bent on revenge, then there never would have been a catastrophic resumption of war in 1939.
Also, I believe that it is largely a myth that the Sudeten German minority population living in Czechoslovakia were some poor persecuted victims with legitimate grievances. They were not. In fact the Czech government bent over backwards to avoid providing a provocation that Hitler could use to intervene. Many Sudeten Germans were pro-Hitler and belligerent and provocative and violent toward their fellow Czech citizens.
Those details aside, I wholeheartedly agree with the main thrust of your excellent article.
I have lived my whole adult life among ethnic Czechs. There is no more accomodating people in the world. They had to be. Holding the line between Islam, the Eastern Empire, the Germans, the Poles, the Russians, and everyone else led to a very pragmatic, reasonable, non-confrontational attitude.
Hitler blaming them for abusing anyone is hysterically funny. Then again, he blamed the Polish border guards for starting WWII: approx 5 men vs. 25 divisions of crack troops.
Liars lie. We’re surprised by what, exactly?
“Lairs lie”. Take Obama for instance. We will all see how he changes his tune on Israel many times more – all in detriment of the Jewish State.
Thanks to Hitler, we don’t have to worry about Germans in the Sudetenland any longer. They were all expelled at the conclusion of WWII.
I won’t be surprised if after the next war, Israel will be fed up enough to do the same in Gaza and the West Bank.
“without going into all of the particulars..”. No, better focus on the core message that reads like that: Germans and their ” followers”, the Arabs are evil and rotten in the core, while the rest of the Europeans and their American brothers are so wonderful, I cannot grasp it, I only can refer to the native Americans and the Mexicans – they might know the truth. The Poles and the Czechs have acted so heroic and wonderful after the war that even nowadays Germans are not allowed to report their own experiences without saying the magic sentence before: “All Germans started the war and that is why we have to understand that the Poles and Czechs got a bit angry and gave us evil Germans what we deserved ….”. They have been young, sometimes only 3 days old? Never mind, evil stays evil and Hitler is the über-father of all Germans as everybody knows. Evard Benes was the hero that protected those Czech heroes who had to kill everybody that looked German after the war and he still protects Czechs, because the Czechs made sure that the Benes decreet(I might have written that wrong) still is valid. Why Europe in this mess now? The Germans, ….the Germans.
Yes. The winners always write the histories. I can’t help you Jerries get over the whole guilt thing – that’s your deal.
Are you a Brit?
Nope – American and a History major. William the Conqueror was a bastard in every sense of the word. Henry Tudor no better. But they won and got to write their histories.
With 25 million dead Russians you’re lucky that Germany didn’t end up a smudge on the map.
Oh, I know the plan of Morgenthau. Neither the man or the plan did impress me.
You mentioned that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that Germany forced Russia to sign on 3 March 1918 ended was far more harsh than anything that Germany dealt with under the terms of Versailles. That may be correct, but that treaty was meaningless. Trotsky had been stalling signing it to end the war on the Eastern Front, so Germany turned up the heat by launching a new military offensive in the East.
Trotsky’s delay in formalizing a Russian surrender was because Germany insisted upon granting autonomy for peoples living in the former Russian-controlled territories of Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, & Ukraine – all of which were in revolt against Lenin’s new murderous Bolshevik government.
Unable to offer any military opposition to the new German Army offensive, Lenin panicked, & in fear that the German army might reach Petrograd & capture him, he quickly instructed Trotsky to agree to sign anything the Germans wanted – knowing full well that as soon as the war ended (almost certainly in a defeat for Germany), he would repudiate any peace treaty he had signed with Germany.
This total disregard by Lenin & his successors of official treaties & agreements signed with the West will continue throughout the entire 70-year existence of the Soviet Union, as every Soviet leader from Lenin to Gorbachev will abide by the terms of their treaties only as long as the terms were beneficial to the Soviet state. The instant the Soviet state no longer reaped major advantages by adhering to its terms, the treaty would be ignored or repudiated. Yet during that 70 years, generations of Western diplomats, bureaucrats, & politicians will constantly strive to sign more (utterly worthless) treaties with these Soviet dictators in order to reap political benefits by making their voters think progress (especially in disarmament) was being made. Not once in its entire history, did the Soviet Union ever adhere to any agreement or treaty it signed with the West – unless the terms were grossly beneficial to the Soviet state.
Interesting historical detail
“Jews have remained silent far too long in respect of that blackest day in Istanbul: the February 1942 towing of the ss Struma, into the Black Sea without a working engine”!
Accordingly, at his next press conference Turkey’s prime-minister, RECEP ERDOGAN, must be confronted with the unpleasant fact of the inhuman behavior of his own father, maritime Captain AHMET ERDOGAN, and that of his fellow Istanbul Port workers, for their failure to oppose and prevent perpetration of a war-crime by Turkish Hands:
Causing the sinking of the Struma and consequent mass drowning of its
765 Jewish passengers including 100 children.
I never understood why Ariel Sharon apologized over his Czechoslovakia speech.
And the Arab minority in Israel, supposedly citizens?
They’re a Fifth Column just like the ethnic Germans in the Seudetenland.
If ever there is a Palestinian state, just & see what the Israeli Arabs start to demand, there will be no end.
If “citizen” means someone who finds abhorrent to respect the national flag or singing the national anthem-then I guess, they are all qualified full-grown Israelis.
one man predicted as much and was correct and proposed the proper solution to removing the fifth col;umn within- however Israel’s own Neville Chamberlains made sure he was branded a racist, politically incorrect and criminalized, his speech and his party libeled, JEWS ignored the very practical answers that should have been enacted long ago.
And now Israel is paying the price- the very biggest price in blood and reputation.
Those who showed compassion to those who would kill them were FOOLS. And now they reap what they sowed.
Kahane was misunderstood but he was 100% right- his own people rejected him and the enemies of Israel killed him for it.
Suggest you all read an excellent essay by Steven Plaut at Zionist Conspiracy on the Seudentenization of Israeli Arabs.
”Palestinian Irredentism – A Warning from History” by Steven Plaut
http://zioncon.blogspot.com/search?q=palestinian
or
http://www.meforum.org/459/palestinian-irredentism-a-warning-from-history
Sorry, only the second link to Middle-East Forum goes directly to the essay.
Bary, you have brought to light a pressing problem, one that calls for immediate world attention–the plight of the Sudeten Germans who, as you point out, were expelled from their ancestral homelands following World War II.
The world must not rest until the Sudeten Germans’ inalienable rights have been satisfied. Until then, acts of legitimate resistance by the Sudeten Germans must be seen in the proper light, as liberation rather than terrorism. Blowing up Czech airliners and suicide bombing of public places in Prague perhaps cannot be praised, but must be understood in context of the continuing violation of the Sudeten Germans’ rights.
The last line of this article is so brilliant I repeat it to honor its insight:
“If you fear to confront an aggressive dictatorship or ideology you will end by confronting it on worse terms.”
This statement should be read and signed by every US diplomat once a year and if they refuse to do so, they should be fired (John Bolton if you are reading this…….).
The new mantra of Israel’s friends must be- there is no peace without full recognition and final settlement. This should be the one and only precondition and if the PA does not like it, tough rocks.
I do want to correct a comment above: most Israeli Arabs, when offered Palestinian citizenship, refuse. That said their is a growing and quite evil Islamist network in the Israeli Arab community.
Ghilmeini, may I politely ask wouldn’t the mantra “there is no peace without full recognition and final settlement” ask for a worthless piece of paper?
I am glad you underscored Professor Rubin’s final line.
Finally, I am curious, why doesn’t Professor Rubin attempt to publish this article (above) in the NYTimes? My worry is that the world is not being educated about the problem — though it has so many other problems.
100% agreed Guilmeini: a maxim for our time and for all times. Perhaps it should be posted to every Western leader.
Churchill’s great words also come to mind: “If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”
re: the Hitler quote, he said something similar to justify the invasion of Poland: “You know the endless attempts I made for a peaceful clarification and understanding of the problem of Austria, and later of the problem of the Sudetenland, Bohemia and Moravia. It was all in vain … I am wrongly judged if my love of peace and patience are mistaken for weakness or even cowardice … I have therefore resolved to speak to Poland in the same language that Poland for months past has used toward us.” This appears on p. 348 of Metaxas’ biography of Bonhoeffer, and the endnotes refer to Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Two views on the 1938 Munich:
1) If the European war had started then, the Czech military equipment that armed at least 10 of the German divisions that attacked France in May 1940 would have been destroyed. Along with a bunch of German military equipment. So one can then argue that a 1938 Czech war would have been a good event.
2) It was the Germans taking over all of Bohemia in early 1939 that got the British Dominions and the US public firmly on the British side. Not sure that Canada would have entered a 1938 war in Europe.
I can understand how Chamberlain must have been horrified about fighting another European land war after his experiences in WWI. I have fought in two wars myself and I definitely do not want to fight in or experience another war, nor do I want my sons to have to go to war either.
This is why I will support any responsible Israeli leader who will do his best to avoid the option of fighting. There may or may not come a point where Israel going to war is the only option but every effort should be made to put it off for as long as possible. But if the war option is all that remains, then Israel should make sure that the war will be fought and won as quickly as possible.
I agree with you, Ken, but I also must point out that Chamberlain was less concerned about the potential of war than he was about domestic military spending.
Chamberlain, along with his two predecessors, Ramsay MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin, was a redistributionist who was determined to change Britain into a Swedish-style socialist state. The fact that Baldwin and Chamberlain were both Conservatives while MacDonald was a Labourite makes no difference; this philosophy permeated the “intellectual elite’” in Britain at the time, irrespective of party affiliation or supposed “philosophy”. (Much as it does here in the U.S. today.)
All of the above operated on the principle that isolationism was the way to go, made easier by Britain being an island. (They also, without admitting it, were counting on the Royal Navy to keep the rest of the world at bay- without actually modernizing it any more than they could help.)
Their vision was that Britain would become a world leader in “social justice”- the sort of society that it became after World War II and down to the present, under the likes of Attlee, Eden, and more recently Blair, Brown, and Cameron, but with no adverse consequences to their reshaping of the country’s psyche.
Britain would “lead by example”, and everyone else would see its perfection, and copy it. Thereby ensuring eternal peace without actually doing anything about the predators- whom they honestly did not believe were the wolves they truly were.
To all of the above, but especially Chamberlain, the world in general (i.e., the Empire) and Europe in particular, was not merely a “distraction”, it was an annoyance. They wanted to concentrate solely on remaking Britain into a “perfect state”, and were therefore willing to first disregard, and then accommodate, not only Hitler but the Japanese warlords as well. Anything to avoid having to actually take a position, and divert attention- and finances- from their social agenda.
This is the most important parallel with the present situation, and the one people most often miss. In both cases, the leaders not only did not see the danger- they refused to admit that it existed because doing so would inconvenience their domestic ambitions.
The term “dereliction of duty” comes to mind, but is probably insufficient. Both then, and now.
cheers
eon
I must say you people are much more knowledgeable than most people who comment on articles on the web. I’d say many of Rubin’s ideas are good put hard in practice, ie easy to see in retrospect, but hard to apply while in the midst of events. One idea I have is to look at the speaker’s resume, esp wrt to murder. If the leader, for instance, murders his own people, then he certainly won’t hesitate to lie. After all, lying is much less bad than murder. So when Arafat gave his “reasons” for not accepting the 2 state solution offered him at Camp David in 2000, his statements should be viewed with considerable salt, esp when they contradict the statements of Pres. Clinton and Dennis Ross, who are not murderers. It’s a simple idea. But it would preclude for instance the Goldstone Report.
Look … while we debate similarities and lessons from 1938; Iran is actively counseling it’s military people to export violent jihad to other countries. They are not alone in this because Imams all over the world are repeating the same message. So this is what I have concluded:
- ISLAM is the enemy
- The primary targets of ISLAM are Israel and America
- While all eyes are on Israel; the U.S.A. is strategically the first target to neutralize because only the U.S.A. can support Israel and win a war; after that, they think Israel will be easy pickins.
- The U.S.A is currently under a two-pronged attack:
1) Political Jihad from within and also via the U.N.
2) Violent terror jihad.
- Muslims are good at “setting the narrative” and especially good at lying in order to deceive. “War is deceit”.
- Muslims are using America’s own rules of PC against us in order to further their aspirations of the institution of Sharia and in that same process they are attempting to foment hatred against Israel.
- At this point in time they will escalate their threats and military presence in as many places as they can.
- They do this for ONE reason: to hasten the return of the Mahdi.
Life is NOT precious to ISLAM; there are NO “humanitarian” concerns when the spread of ISLAM is the goal. So let’s not kid ourselves. The lives of Americans,
Israel people or any other peoples are just trash in the way of an expansionist ideology. No amount of talking is gonna change that …
Guys like Neville Chamberlain are naive in that they not only misunderstand totalitarianism; but they cannot fathom the reality of how despicable human nature can actually be. Obama is again playing politics at the U.N. while Iran are actively plotting our demise and preparing assaults on the West …
At this point … prayer is our only option.
WE’re under more than a two pronged attack. The left (out internal 5th column) is allied with islam and has been waging a cultural and economic attack for decades. Add to that the cultural dilution they are deliberatly foisting on us (also economic) via the mexican invasion, and I don’t really see us coming out of this intact.
We have to understand that just as the ‘War on Terror’ is a negligently ignorant misnomer, so to is the ‘Arab-Israeli’ or ‘Palestinian-Israeli’ conflict. The ‘War on Terror’ is actually a spasm of defense by the West against the ISLAMIC WORLD WAR.
The conflict in Israel is actually the ISLAMIC-JEWISH GENOCIDE, another battle – the most important theologically – in the ISLAMIC WORLD WAR. It is the psycho-sexual orgasmic dream of Islam’s very own Hitler, Muhammed. It is his mandate to his modern minions to finish what he couldn’t – exterminate the Jewish sliver of humanity who, through their brilliance, morality and productivity inflamed the grand mal narcissism and inferiority complexes of these evil twins, Muhammed and Hitler.
Islam can’t live peaceably with the Catholics in the Philippines, or the Buddhists in Thailand, or the atheists in China, or the Zoroastrians and Baha’i in Iranian Persia, or the Chaldeans in Iraq, or the Copts in Egypt, or the Hindus and Sikhs in India, or the infidels of Europe, America or Australia. In every case Islam must by religious mandate carve from the corpus of their host culture a separate Islamic zone that festers like a pox filled boil, eventually erupting in a violent virulent attack that kills the host. Knowing this, can we really expect Islam to live in peace with the modern Jews of Israel?
The ISLAMIC WORLD WAR.
The ISLAMIC-JEWISH GENOCIDE.
Let’s get our terms straight.
~ The Infidel Alliance
OUT-HITLERING HITLER WAS THE ONLY CHOICE
Chamberlain met with military chiefs before going to Munich. RAF head said something like we can last 2 weeks, then we are done. PM Daladier of France met with his chiefs. The General leading the French Air Force said, “You have no Air Force – NO AIR FORCE!” Hitler was propagandizing his Heinkel 112 fighter, a super fighter that was not successful beyond a scarecrow to scare others. There was a chance. Chamberlain and Daladier should have done the following: Show up in full Field Marshal uniform with a lot of medals. Get coaching from the most ferocious Sergeants Major on screaming, foot-stamping, leaning forward with bulgey eyes and quivering jowels etc. At the conference, when discussion moves to specifics, both take swagger sticks and whack the map and the desk like killing roaches, and start screaming and stamping. Insist that German troops leave the Rhineland and go back to the line set at the WWI peace conference, and call for reopening the Vienna Peace Treaty of 1825 to provide for the adequate defence of the Low Countries. Oh, and there is no problem with Czechoslovakia as French-British forces will be sent there as observers of civil peace. At stake was 40 divisions and an industrial base to support more than that, plus important geography. However, when the PMs attended Munich, they were pre-defeated.
In view of the continued Hamas intention to destroy Israel, a UN member- state, can it be said that a Palestine state that includes Gaza, under the control of Hamas, meets the “peace-loving” requirement for membership in the UN?
It is interesting to contemplate what would have happened had the west dealt with Hitler with strength. It could be argued that their weakness emboldened Hitler, resulting in the much larger war. But one advantage of the terrible cost paid, was that it was a war to the the end. The loser was crushed. You don’t see that today. We prevent one side from being totally crushed, so we never have an ultimate completion.
America never had a problem with Muslim terrorists until our government became Israel’s sugar daddy.
America should stop taking sides in the silly religious wars of the Middle East. We gain nothing from sending billions in welfare to Israel.
To WhiteHistory,
I’m shocked you know so little about Islam. The Koran commands that all nations and all peoples are conquered and subjugated under excessively cruel Islamic sharia law where females are treated as inferior and defenseless non-Muslims have no human rights. America and the nations have given billions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority Muslim terrorist organization.
Supported by US/EU tax dollars, global jihadists, Palestinian Authority Seek Islamic CONQUEST of America, Britain and the world.
Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris, Palestinian Authority TV, May 13, 2005: “The day will come when we will rule America. The day will come when we will rule Britain and the entire world.”
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/terrorists-promise-more-attacks-like-9-11/39161/
American and British leaders must immediately explain to Americans and Brits why they finance the PLO/PA terrorist organization whose declared goal is Islamic conquest of our countries.
To WhiteHistory,
Jihad is an obligation in the Koran. The Jihad is against ALL non-Muslims.
Financed by the US/EU/UK, global jihadists, Murder Incorporated, Palestinian Authority call for the Murder of All Jews and the Murder of Americans:
Broadcast from Gaza mosque, Oct 13 2000, Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, on Palestinian Authority TV (transcribed by Memri): “Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them…”
U.S. leaders must immediately explain to Americans and Jews, why the Palestinian Authority, whose goal is the murder of all Jews and the murder of Americans, are heavily financed, armed, and continually given advanced military training by the U.S. and inform Americans how many U.S. trained Muslim terrorists are now in America. And explain why U.S. leaders demand that Muslim terrorists are given a terror state inside tiny, vulnerable Israel.
Dear ‘WhiteHistory’,
Your ignorance is dangerously negligent. The United States first suffered from Islamic jihad before the ink on the newly written constitution had time to dry.
Our first foreign wars, the Barbary Wars of 1801 – 1805 and again in 1815 were because of Islamic jihad theology, not because of America being Israels sugar daddy. This was before the modern state of Israel even existed, before the U.S. had a navy, before the U.S. had overseas military bases, before the U.S. even had a foreign policy, and before the repugnant cultural exports of Eminem or Brittney Spears, and before hamburger culinary imperialism.
The jihad today is the same jihad of 1801, and the same jihad of 7th century Muhammed.
~ The Infidel Alliance
Israel, NEVER surrender to global jihad!
For the sole reason Jews were not Muslim, 10,000 Gaza Jews were ethnically cleansed from land that NEVER belonged to Arabs. Forced into poverty, many of the Jews had to live in tents for a very long time.
Muslim mobs celebrated by desecrating and destroying Gush Katif, Gaza synagogues. The Jew cleansed land was transformed into rocket firing sites into Israel. THOUSANDS of rockets fired into Israeli cities. It was LAND for WAR.
NO MORE LAND FOR WAR!
To add a little more of Hitler history. I learned in a German History class that when Hitler ordered German troops to occupy the Rhineland, his generals were against it because the German army was only starting to rebuild and they believed the French forces at the time to be superior. If the French had responded with force, Hitler would have ordered the German forces to retreat. The generals were contemplating overthrowing Hitler. The French retreated, confirming Hitler’s belief that they lacked resolve and solidifying his control of the German army.
Great thread, some really knowledgeable folks here.
I having a real problem understanding that Obama allowed the Moslem Brotherhood to steal 20,000 anti-aircraft missiles in Libya. There is no question that they have already found their way to Gaza. I expect that they will also show up in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is mind boggling to realize how well he has armed the Moslem Brotherhood.
Once again, a rising military aggressor is bent on domination of its neighbors and holocaust of the Jews. And once again, the nations (in this case, one nation) which could stop them fails to act.
The arc of the Iran story is so redolent of the 1930′s British appeasers (not just Baldwin and Chamberlain, but a genuine broad-based political consensus, except for Churchill) that both stories can be told in the same words.
Stage One: “(Germany/Iran) may be arming for war, but it is not strong enough to threaten peace anywhere. The real danger is posed by our ally (France/Israel).”
Stage Two: “(Germany/Iran) may be arming for war and getting stronger every day, but they are not irrational. They may threaten the peace, but their fear of our ally (France/Israel), backed by their fear of us, will be sufficient to deter them.”
Stage Three: “(Germany/Iran) is a threat to peace. They are already too strong for us to stop them militarily. We must rely on diplomacy to make the best deal with them we can.”
In the 1930′s, inflated and premature fears of German military power paralyzed French and British action when it might have succeeded, and put off the showdown until Hitler was actually ready. Excuses for inaction have always been plentiful.
Again we tread the same shameful path.
Flashback: Bullwinkle: “Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!”
Rocky: “That trick never works.”
Bullwinkle: “This time for sure.”
Bullwinkle (after trick fails): “I gotta get a new hat.”
Fatah Central Committee Member Abbas Zaki Calls Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Obama “Scumbags” and Says: “The Greater Goal Cannot Be Accomplished in One Go”, Al-Jazeera TV Arabic (Qatar) – September 23, 2011
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3130.htm
Transcript:
Abbas Zaki: “The settlement should be based upon the borders of June 4, 1967. When we say that the settlement should be based upon these borders, President [Abbas] understands, we understand, and everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go.
“If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall – what will become of Israel? It will come to an end.”
[...]
“Who is nervous, upset, and angry now? Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Obama… All those scumbags. Why even get into this? We should be happy to see Israel upset.”
[...]
“If we say that we want to wipe Israel out… C’mon, it’s too difficult. It’s not [acceptable] policy to say so. Don’t say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself.
“I want the resolutions that everybody agrees upon. I say to the world, to the Quartet, and to America: You promised, and you turned out to be liars.”
[...]
It was doubtful that the German Army could have defeated the Czech’s in 38. Had Benes been forceful, ignored the the perfidious French and English and expelled the Studenten Germans, Hitler would have had his bluff called. Even if the German’s attacked Czechoslovakia it would have been no walk in the park for them, they ran a good chance of losing on the battlefield and suffered severe economic harm. For one thing Germany relied on substantial imports from the USSR that had to cross Poland (or Czechoslovakia) that would have been cut off. The Germans were in no position to fight Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1938 not to mention a cutoff imports from the France and the UK. The French and The British would have happily blockade Germany if the German Army was bogged down in Czechoslovakia. That probably would have forced Hitler out and the Nazi party with him.
Israel should learn the lesson, ignore the West and negotiate solely on her terms. The Arabs have the weak hand, why make concessions that are not necessary and weakens your position? Keep building settlements and the longer the Arabs insist on demands that are not credible or realistic congruent to their bargaining position the less likely Israel will ever need to concede anything. The West won’t do a thing. North Korea and Iran have proven that point. The West will only force issues if Israel is perceived as willing to give in just to go along.
In the meantime Israel should to the extent she can, arm the Kurds. If the Palestinians are deserving of a state, why not the Kurds?
Since posting my remark, I must qualify my first sentence therein…