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Posts Tagged ‘land for peace’
April 19th, 2010 at 10:33 am
Obama Asks Israel to Play Czechoslovakia, 1938
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In 1938, naive Western leaders fell for Adolf Hitler’s pretextual “land for peace” ruse.  Is the same delusion afflicting Barack Obama today?

Hitler had used the Sudetenland, an ethnically German region ceded to Czechoslovakia following World War I, as a synthetic grievance to justify his program of expansionism and rearmament.  Credulous leaders like Britain’s Neville Chamberlain believed that satisfying Hitler’s ethnic territorial grievance could resolve simmering European disaccord, so they agreed to allow annexation by Hitler.  In a lasting monument to weakness in the face of tyranny, Chamberlain waved the treaty proclaiming “peace in our time.”

Some things don’t change, despite cautionary pleas of “never again.”

Today, Israel stands in a position similar to Czechoslovakia in 1938, and Western leaders suffer a similar “land for peace” delusion.  Israel’s enemies want nothing less than Israel’s annihilation, but people like Obama somehow believe that the key to Middle East peace is forcing Israel to cede territory to its Palestinian antagonists.  Obama expresses more anger toward Israeli construction of apartments within its own territory than he does toward terrorist rocket attacks against Israeli schoolyards, sadly.  Just last week, Obama claimed that, “when conflict breaks out … that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.”

The reality?  America has never once sent troops to shed blood for Israel, which has done quite well defending itself, thank you very much.  Moreover, Israeli surrender of strategic land will only embolden those bent on its destruction.

A tip for President Obama:  spend a little less time preparing your NCAA basketball tournament brackets for ESPN, and a little more time understanding rudimentary history of tyranny’s tactics.