PEACE (NOT) IN OUR TIME

By Schmoel Yitzhak

The Atlantic magazine has just released a chronological photo history of World War II, beginning with the days when storm clouds had gathered in the early and mid-1930s.

One of the magazine's most vivid pictures depicts Neville Chamberlain in 1938 greeting the English media. The British Prime Minister's plane had just landed near London, following Chamberlain's meetings with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany.

"Peace in our time," Chamberlain boasted to newsmen after the fateful meeting on September 28, 1938. What's more, thousands of his countrymen truly believed him.

The United Kingdom's leader was referring to what was to be known as "The Munich Agreement between England, France, Germany and Italy. To realists, it was notorious as the re-definement of "appeasement."

After taking power in Germany in 1933, the Nazi Chancellor violated treaty after treaty until 1938 when a World War II seemed a distinct possibility. In fact it appeared so imminent that Chamberlain felt obliged to meet Hitler and, once and for all, hammer out an agreement that would calm fearful nations such as Poland, France and Czechoslovakia, each of which watched Germany fiercely re-arm.

Chamberlain's idea of maintaining "peace" was to give away a portion of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland, which Hitler had demanded.

So, what was the response. The British leader, along with his wobbly French counterpart, Edouard DaDladier, arbitrarily handed to Germany a well-fortified Czech province that was protected by one of the finest armies confronting the Nazis. Military analysts believe that if the Germans ever attacked the Czech border, they would have been repulsed by the military and natural fortifications.

The brave Czechs were willing to go to war against Hitler if necessary.

But the English-French "allies" did not even have the decency to invite the Czech leader, Eduard Benes, to the Munch meeting. Clearly, Chamberlain and Daladier wanted no part of Benes because they knew he would oppose any attempt at appeasement.

The Brits should have known better. Hitler already had shown his cards when he annexed Austria in February 1938 after earlier violations of the Treat of Versailles. Furthermore, English spy Hugh Christie -- based in Berlin -- informed the English government that German generals, fearful of Hitler's super-aggressive tactics, planned to overthrow the fuhrer if Chamberlain would forcefully support the Czechs.

But Hitler -- along with his Italian counterpart Benito Mussolini, who also signed the Munich Agreement -- had intimidated and conned the two allies. They were bullied by his bluster, blinded to what he had done to Austria and naive enough to believe that by putting their signatures to a piece of parchment, it would make everything hunky-dory in the world.

For Chamberlain, reality set in a mere six months after he left Berlin. In March 1939, the Munich Agreement was tossed in the round file as Nazi troops -- unprovoked -- marched into Prague, annexing Czechoslovakia with only variations on the manner in which Austria was put in Hitler's pocket.

Thus, Chamberlain's "Peace In Our Time" period of calm enjoyed a September 1938 through March 1939 shelf life and before Summer had ended the Nazis were marching into Poland, igniting World War II.

What does this have to do with Israel?

Plenty.

For starters, let's turn the calendar back to 1993 and the Oslo Accords. Shimon Peres became Israel's Neville Chamberlain to the Palestinian Authority's Yassir Arafat.

In many ways, Oslo was as bad as Munich because it had the sinister aspect of only one unrepresentative group of Israeli doves attempting to appease the Arabs. Like the Czech's Benes being outlawed from Munich, the Israeli non-appeasers were kept out of Oslo. In some ways it was remniscent of a Hitler putsch.

The Arabs "Little Hitler," Arafat, was no less deceptive than the fuhrer and Peres, Inc. learned that lesson after a pair of intifadas, among other destructive indignities.

Or did Peres ever learn that lesson? One wonders.

Now we hear that Israel's President -- whatever that means -- is having secret talks with Arab (alias Palestinian) negotiator Saeb Erekat. We're also told that they are "going over maps" in an effort to determine how the land must be reconfigured if a peace pact is to be blueprinted.

We can love Shimon Peres for a lot of things, starting with his primary role in developing Israel's (shhh!) atomic arsenal. But that does not mean that the indomitable politician should be permitted to do another "Munich" on Israel like the one that happened in Oslo.

Nor should we overlook the most important fact that the very clever Erekat represents the PA which, at last look, was not spelled Hamas.

Compared to Hamas, the PA only appears more moderate but the Palestinians embrace several factions including some of the more violent groups in the world.

Erekat's predecessors, including onetime PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein, have one priority above all; they want to wipe out Israel the way Hitler effectively erased Czechoslovakia. And if it means signing some useless piece of paper, that would be just the beginning of the beginning of the end of Israel. Check out the following statement once uttered by Muhsein and you'll see what I mean:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means of continuing our struggle against the State of Israel for our Arab unity. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Benjamin Netanyahu is aware of the no-longer-secret Peres-Erekat meetings. Bibi knows that the Arabs still refuse to acknowledge Israel as the Jewish State.

Bibi knows a lot about Oslo, not to mention Munich, Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain.

He's well aware that to appease the Arabs -- not to mention the European Union and Uncle Sam -- Ariel Sharon gave away Gaza. The product of that bit of appeasement has been the unleashing of endless rockets into Israel. a phony Goldstone Report and other indignities against the Middle East's only democracy.

It's time for Israel to do just the opposite of appeasement. Let Peres do a latter-day Eduard Benes and tell the Arabs that there will be no capitulation.

And, most of all, let Bibi follow the path of Winston Churchill who never walked the road of appeasement because he knew that that path led to a dead end!

THE BOYCOTT LAW, BULLSHITTERS AND HOW I CAME TO LOVE SEPTEMBER

By Simon Fischler

The Israeli boycott is anti-Semitic, period. Those who wish to boycott Israel must be aware of this fact.

Those who wish to boycott Israel are anti-Semitic because they totally disregard Israel’s democratic and pluralistic nature, labelling her an apartheid state.

They overlook the one hundred percent anti-Semitic policies of the Palestinian leaders (Fatah and Hamas) and the FERVENT anti-Semitic culture of the PALESTINIAN PEOPLE.

A recent poll taken by the Palestinian Government shows that the Palestinian people see the two-state solution as a means of ultimately destroying Israel.

This should come as no shock, being that this type of propaganda is fed to the Palestinians from childhood on.

Because of this clearly racist Boycott against Israel, the Knesset has just passed a law giving citizens of Israel the ability to sue those who attempt to boycott Israeli companies and the settlements in Judea and Samaria.

Predictably there are those in Israel, the E.U. and even some in the American government who have condemned the Knesset for passing this law.

This law, however, was passed through democratic institutions to protect a democracy from organizations (the B.D.S and I.S.M movements are heavily funded by Saudi Arabia and other Arab dictatorships) that are largely funded by tyrannical Islamic dictatorships.

I love it when Europe slams Israel: it is the pinnacle of hypocrisy. The E.U. apparently has forgotten they have made being anti-Semitic and denying the Holocaust illegal.

On top of this many countries in Europe have made it illegal for a Muslim to where a full veil and have also started making it illegal to build minarets.

So when the EU starts chastising Israel about the Boycott Law, it just makes me laugh.

But it is far more serious when dealing with those in Israel who have come out against the Boycott Law.

These bullshitters fought tooth and nail against Rabbis in Safed who wanted to boycott renting apartments to Arabs.

This is a form of boycott, isn’t it?

I might not agree with it and I might find it disgusting, but if one is going to come out against Rabbis who want their constituents to boycott Arabs, that person had better stand against anti-semites boycotting Israel basically because she is the Jewish State (no matter how they cloak their “reasons”).

Apparently for many on the Left in Israel, it is totally acceptable to boycott Israel just for being the homeland of the Jewish Nation. But are they calling for a boycott against any Arab nation for its miserable record on how they treat their own citizens – women, gays, protesters?

This self-loathing mentality in Israel is unacceptable. And it is why, no matter how hard it is for me to digest, the Boycott Law is basically a sound defense. The recent protests in Israel over cottage cheese prices and housing costs proves that we’re not bereft of our freedom.

Boycotting cottage cheese and housing is not the same as boycotting a country only because it happens to be the Jewish Nation state.

The left in Israel are bullshitters for a larger reason.

Their totally screwed-up sense of understanding the Palestinian plight is laughable and based on the worst of politically correct principles, which basically comes down to “no matter how rightly we (Israel) act, they must believe in our (Israel’s) basic wrongness!”

This ridiculous circular logic is tired and old. It also has no place in Israel.

The Palestinians are in their situation today solely because of the crap leadership they have chosen or allowed to rule them.

There are still Palestinian refugees today, but NOT because of Israel. There are still refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza because the Palestinian leadership has maintained their choice to destroy Israel instead of building Palestine.

Those in Israel who constantly blame her for the idiocy of the Palestinians are quite simply 100 per cent wrong.

SEPTEMBER

Thank the Lord for September; I cannot wait for it to arrive.

Israel needs to stop stressing on the Palestinians cheap plan to declare statehood at the United Nations. The Israeli government should be encouraging it, in fact.

The second Abbas and his underlings break every U.N. security council resolution and every agreement signed together by the Palestinians, Israel, the United States and the E.U., by unilaterally declaring statehood, Israel will be free of the Palestinian burden.

It makes no difference what the world says or does; they will be biased against Israel in the international arena, as they always have been. But in the end they will still do business with Israel.

The Palestinians will have their state, just on far less land than they want.

Just as it made no difference to the world when six Arab nations attempted to destroy Israel at her creation, it will make no difference to Israel that there will be a Palestine without territorial continuity.

That fact will be the fault and the responsibility of no one else but the Palestinian leadership.

No one is telling Malaysia or Indonesia to give Singapore more land, are they? Is anybody boycotting China for what she has done to Tibet? Why isn’t the EU demanding that France return Alsace-Lorraine to Germany? When will the UN accuse Turkey for the mass genocide of Armenians? Why is everybody pussy-footing around Syria and Yemen?

There are easily a score of countries that could -- and should -- be ostracized, condemned and certainly boycotted before wasting precious time and energy on the mythical wrongs supposedly done by the state of Israel against the Palestinians.

And now, in September, the Palestinians, by unilaterally declaring statehood and by breaking the international law that has been applied to this conflict, will forfeit thereby the land that Israel chooses to unilaterally annex.

It will also make it legal in international law for Israel to DECLARE WAR on the state of Palestine any time a rocket is fired into Israel.

Instead of continuing guilt trips and self-hating bullshit, we should be celebrating the Palestinians’ everlasting inability to get something right.

Bring it on!