As the UN led by Russia and Islamic nations condemns Israel as an apartheid state and the British prepare to reduce their already puny forces near Basra; as Arabs prepare an intifada over the Temple Mount again and Iran waves its rockets we must review how the Oslo-Road Map process follows the tracks of the phased destruction of Czechoslovakia by British diplomacy in the 1930s. The lessons to be learned grow ever timelier.
The Arabs west of the Jordan River, both Israeli Arabs and those in the Autonomous areas have many more political and economic privileges and benefits than Arabs in any other state. From medical care to virtually free electricity and water, to uncensored media that spew Nazi-style Jew hatred, their liberties reach license. Similarly, in the 1930s "the minorities of Czechoslovakia were the best-treated minorities in Europe and the [Sudeten German] agitations were noticeable precisely because they were living in a democratic liberal state that gave them the freedom to agitate."*
The resemblance of that situation to today's murderously violent Arab agitation in Israel is clear. But the media have grown into a form of global incitement that follows and sometimes helps stage anti-Israel spectaculars: as the Arabs are the open weapon, the media has become the hidden hand of the diplomatic-financial interests. Their polemics are not about market share but to isolate Israel as an "apartheid" state (cf. Jimmy Carter's book) and justify its destruction (per the "Baker group").
Just as British diplomats and officials stirred up the Arab riots of the 1920s and '30s against Jews in the yishuv so their European colleagues enabled Hitler during the 1930s, encouraging even helping finance (via America) Germany to rearm, making statements in Parliament and sending messages in meetings on the continent that Eastern Europe was for the Reich to take. These same diplomats undermined or crushed all those who resisted their grand design. The victim is demonized, delegitimized and dismembered in the modern version of ancient cults of human sacrifice, -- just as Israel is demonized, delegitimized and about to be partitioned in our day.
Remember: even the 1949 lines are not recognized borders but armistice lines. Don't believe that the British Foreign Office or their friends in the State Department have surrendered the goal of an Arab Federation from Baghdad to Cairo. The situation in the Negev (as with the contiguous Gush Katif before it) shows it is being set up to be severed from the State, in whole or in part. Arab attacks and the refusal of Israeli regimes to respond forcefully are meant to make Jews leave. If they don't, they eventually will be dragged out or killed. A Polish-corridor style free access from Gaza to Jericho and the West Bank would be just the start and would lead to a similar result, Arthur Dove's Arab Federation, "its front door on the Mediterranean," a goal aped by Fatah-affiliated groups.
Look at the parallel details in the policies of appeasement, war policies. Beginning in 1935, second President Czech President Eduard Benes made numerous conciliatory offers of self-rule for the Sudeten Germans. These included proportional representation throughout the Republic but they declined it. One thinks of the gift of total autonomy within Area 'A' with which the Arabs remain unsatisfied though Jordan and Egypt gave them no autonomy and little if any services; one thinks of the re-definition of Fatah as "moderates" and Abu Mazen as "a man of courage." Clearly self rule is not what Fatah wants. It was not what the Sudeten, German or British leaders wanted either.
In 1937, Czech Prime Minister Hodza offered to transfer all German administrators serving in the Czech government to the Sudeten area so Germans there could be entirely self-ruled. "Plan after plan for minority rights, economic concessions, cultural and administrative autonomy and even political federalism were produced by the Czechs…but brushed aside as inadequate…" Under British pressure, the Czechs even agreed for dual Czech-German nationality for the Sudetens (similar measures have been proposed for Arabs in Yesha). But "none of these suggestions were acceptable to Konrad Henlein, head of the Sudeten German Party for the simple reason that he wanted no concessions within Czechoslovakia…his real desire was to destroy the Czechoslovak state." Here is a precise description of the position and rejectionist behavior of all the Arab states to an Israeli state, even the possibility of a Jewish state, no matter how small since 1920, from Amin al Husseini to the PLO, Fatah and Hamas today. It's like listening to a tape: they don't want concessions; their real desire is to destroy the Jewish state while western diplomats minimize or back page this ugly fact, the pre-selected outcome of the process. As in 1937-8, the pressure on the victim to submit is relentless, the 'guarantees' increasingly strained and absurd; the professions of allies that they cannot do more to help are precisely the same: false and outcome-based, the outcome being the disintegration of the victim.
But concessions continue to be offered, then and now, under pressure of the great power "friend" of the beleaguered nation in question. Months before Hitler demanded self-rule for the Germans in the Sudetenland, Neville Chamberlain, Lords Halifax and Lothian among others were privately discussing, inadvertently 'leaking' and eventually publicly stating in parliament (March 1938) that the Czechs should cede their entire mountainous region to Germany outright. This demand for compromise was clearly a recipe for dismemberment and ruin because the Czech fortifications were built into the region. The Sudeten Mountains then, the mountains of Judea and Samaria today; a historian asks: how could Czechoslovakia have its peace or even its existence guaranteed by France, as the British claimed it could, after surrendering its key defensive positions when according to the British it could not be guaranteed by France, Russia, and England with these defenses intact because Britain was overextended? As the London Times asserted February 20, even its five thousand troops remaining near Basra may be "significantly drawn down" by late 2008. At the same time, British officers are training PLO Force 17 in Gaza under the eyes of the UN. For this they have time and personnel as they did to train, equip and lead the Arab legion during the 1940s. The writing again is on the wall.
How will the United States, even with the best will in the world guarantee and maintain the existence of Israel minus Judea and Samaria when it claims that peace will never come so long as Israel retains its mountainous heartland and maintains full autonomy for its own people and armed forces? The entire process is one of terrorizing the target state to make suicidal concessions just as was done in 1938.
Another link between those times and ours is the disjunction between the upper diplomatic echelons of western governments and their military, parliaments and people. The purpose of the so-called negotiations with the Czechs (as now with successive Israeli regimes) is to exert pressure to surrender at any cost. The importance of "consultation before partition," Chamberlain said, was that "it could be represented as the choice of the Czechoslovak government," as the expulsion of Gush Katif was sold as the "choice" of a supposedly representative and "democratic" Israel and the "rightwing nationalist" Ariel Sharon. Blackmail in the form of negotiations "would have a more favorable reception from the British public" then as it may from the American public today. Above all, Chamberlain added negotiations and eventual Czech agreement, like a handshake on the White House lawn "would dispose of any idea that we were ourselves carving up Czechoslovak territory." And so it is with administrations in Washington since that of Jimmy Carter.
Given the orchestrated UN uproar against Israel, meant to legitimize Hamas and cover Hizbollah's activities in Lebanon, it is clear that Mr. Carter's book, its title and the timing of its release were not an isolated exercise in individual bias. The resignations from his institute at Emory University are apt but come very late in the day. And as to Russia, the major supplier of Iran's nuclear and missile program and former backer of Egypt, Syria and the PLO: why did American and England let them into the UN at all when the world body was created "to foster democracy?" Because Russia shares and serves, as they have since 1917, various global interests of the Anglo-American elite, mainly the drive toward a regionalized world system that uses constant wars of attrition or "terror" to impose security measures on their own populations.
The gap between the agenda and methods of the diplomatic top tier, western parliaments and general electorates was strong then as now. When six months of betrayals, pressure on the French, and green lights to Hitler had wrung acquiescence from Paris and crippling concessions from the Czechs, Chamberlain found that he had created a monster. At a meeting in Godesborg on September 22, 1938, having repeatedly been assured of and received British diplomatic help Hitler was in a fury, demanding the whole pie immediately without impressive treaties. For everyone but Chamberlain and his clique and the top French diplomatic group it was a deal-breaker; the English and French Cabinets rejected the entire partition plan; the Czechs formed a new Cabinet that rejected it; the Russians served notice that if German forces moved they would invade East Prussia and protect the Czechs. But Chamberlain would not let go of his grand design. With the help of the media his group created a war scare, a terror war in Britain based on grossly exaggerated descriptions of German military might. Having previously ordered the Czechs not to mobilize their forces (shades of summer 2006) they now ordered that they do so. Pronouncements of Germany's military omnipotence filled the news. Through dominance of the media, a small clique can impose its agenda and views on a nation, via hysteria and manufactured despair when they feel it useful.
If Mahmoud Abbas announced tomorrow that he was going to take all of Israel from Eilat to Lebanon and Jerusalem to Tel Aviv would it create as great revulsion and stir? Would Congress, let along the EU or Russia formerly repudiate Oslo and the Road Map? No; the State Department would not even need to order Olmert to mobilize the IDF (for show) and to flood the complicit media with stories about dirty bombs exploding in American cities in order to secure Israel's unilateral surrender, termed "disengagement."
One last parallel to emphasize: just as the Czech armed forces' quantity were on par with those of Germany in fall 1938 (the British government knew this via its military attaches on the continent) and the quality of Czech forces far superior, so is the quality of Israel's armed forces today still far superior to those of its neighbors. The vulnerability of the Germans then was as evident as the weakness of Fatah and Israel's Arab neighbors now. So grave was the German position that the German Chief of Staff and other top officials were prepared to assassinate Hitler on September 28, 1938 if and when he gave the order to invade the Czechs; Arafat, too, in 1982 and afterward, and now Abbas have been and are saved by America and by Israeli regimes. Without its mountain barrier, Jewish settlements, and with EU, UN and NATO troops ready for Judea, Samaria and Gaza military advantages will be gravely compromised as happened to the Czechs without the Sudetenland. And with all governments and major media claiming that "the cycle of violence" will rise without Israeli concessions (that invite attacks by Hamas and Hizbollah on the "apartheid" state and suppress Israeli response), the military advantages of the victim, as great as those in 1938 can be neutered. Milner's words that Palestine "must never become a Jewish state" will be fulfilled.
British diplomats had no problem having Americans rebuild the continent their policies had led to ruin; Anglo-American and EU diplomats would have no problem letting Americans rebuild Israel after a similar process of "consultation before partition." It's good for business and demonstrates authority. Mesopotamia may not be the only killing field in the Middle East unless a sovereign Israel finds and rights itself.
History does repeat; but with awareness of the pattern the game need not again be played till the checkmate: holocaust and a huge spike in global terror.
Gamla
The Arabs west of the Jordan River, both Israeli Arabs and those in the Autonomous areas have many more political and economic privileges and benefits than Arabs in any other state. From medical care to virtually free electricity and water, to uncensored media that spew Nazi-style Jew hatred, their liberties reach license. Similarly, in the 1930s "the minorities of Czechoslovakia were the best-treated minorities in Europe and the [Sudeten German] agitations were noticeable precisely because they were living in a democratic liberal state that gave them the freedom to agitate."*
The resemblance of that situation to today's murderously violent Arab agitation in Israel is clear. But the media have grown into a form of global incitement that follows and sometimes helps stage anti-Israel spectaculars: as the Arabs are the open weapon, the media has become the hidden hand of the diplomatic-financial interests. Their polemics are not about market share but to isolate Israel as an "apartheid" state (cf. Jimmy Carter's book) and justify its destruction (per the "Baker group").
Just as British diplomats and officials stirred up the Arab riots of the 1920s and '30s against Jews in the yishuv so their European colleagues enabled Hitler during the 1930s, encouraging even helping finance (via America) Germany to rearm, making statements in Parliament and sending messages in meetings on the continent that Eastern Europe was for the Reich to take. These same diplomats undermined or crushed all those who resisted their grand design. The victim is demonized, delegitimized and dismembered in the modern version of ancient cults of human sacrifice, -- just as Israel is demonized, delegitimized and about to be partitioned in our day.
Remember: even the 1949 lines are not recognized borders but armistice lines. Don't believe that the British Foreign Office or their friends in the State Department have surrendered the goal of an Arab Federation from Baghdad to Cairo. The situation in the Negev (as with the contiguous Gush Katif before it) shows it is being set up to be severed from the State, in whole or in part. Arab attacks and the refusal of Israeli regimes to respond forcefully are meant to make Jews leave. If they don't, they eventually will be dragged out or killed. A Polish-corridor style free access from Gaza to Jericho and the West Bank would be just the start and would lead to a similar result, Arthur Dove's Arab Federation, "its front door on the Mediterranean," a goal aped by Fatah-affiliated groups.
Look at the parallel details in the policies of appeasement, war policies. Beginning in 1935, second President Czech President Eduard Benes made numerous conciliatory offers of self-rule for the Sudeten Germans. These included proportional representation throughout the Republic but they declined it. One thinks of the gift of total autonomy within Area 'A' with which the Arabs remain unsatisfied though Jordan and Egypt gave them no autonomy and little if any services; one thinks of the re-definition of Fatah as "moderates" and Abu Mazen as "a man of courage." Clearly self rule is not what Fatah wants. It was not what the Sudeten, German or British leaders wanted either.
In 1937, Czech Prime Minister Hodza offered to transfer all German administrators serving in the Czech government to the Sudeten area so Germans there could be entirely self-ruled. "Plan after plan for minority rights, economic concessions, cultural and administrative autonomy and even political federalism were produced by the Czechs…but brushed aside as inadequate…" Under British pressure, the Czechs even agreed for dual Czech-German nationality for the Sudetens (similar measures have been proposed for Arabs in Yesha). But "none of these suggestions were acceptable to Konrad Henlein, head of the Sudeten German Party for the simple reason that he wanted no concessions within Czechoslovakia…his real desire was to destroy the Czechoslovak state." Here is a precise description of the position and rejectionist behavior of all the Arab states to an Israeli state, even the possibility of a Jewish state, no matter how small since 1920, from Amin al Husseini to the PLO, Fatah and Hamas today. It's like listening to a tape: they don't want concessions; their real desire is to destroy the Jewish state while western diplomats minimize or back page this ugly fact, the pre-selected outcome of the process. As in 1937-8, the pressure on the victim to submit is relentless, the 'guarantees' increasingly strained and absurd; the professions of allies that they cannot do more to help are precisely the same: false and outcome-based, the outcome being the disintegration of the victim.
But concessions continue to be offered, then and now, under pressure of the great power "friend" of the beleaguered nation in question. Months before Hitler demanded self-rule for the Germans in the Sudetenland, Neville Chamberlain, Lords Halifax and Lothian among others were privately discussing, inadvertently 'leaking' and eventually publicly stating in parliament (March 1938) that the Czechs should cede their entire mountainous region to Germany outright. This demand for compromise was clearly a recipe for dismemberment and ruin because the Czech fortifications were built into the region. The Sudeten Mountains then, the mountains of Judea and Samaria today; a historian asks: how could Czechoslovakia have its peace or even its existence guaranteed by France, as the British claimed it could, after surrendering its key defensive positions when according to the British it could not be guaranteed by France, Russia, and England with these defenses intact because Britain was overextended? As the London Times asserted February 20, even its five thousand troops remaining near Basra may be "significantly drawn down" by late 2008. At the same time, British officers are training PLO Force 17 in Gaza under the eyes of the UN. For this they have time and personnel as they did to train, equip and lead the Arab legion during the 1940s. The writing again is on the wall.
How will the United States, even with the best will in the world guarantee and maintain the existence of Israel minus Judea and Samaria when it claims that peace will never come so long as Israel retains its mountainous heartland and maintains full autonomy for its own people and armed forces? The entire process is one of terrorizing the target state to make suicidal concessions just as was done in 1938.
Another link between those times and ours is the disjunction between the upper diplomatic echelons of western governments and their military, parliaments and people. The purpose of the so-called negotiations with the Czechs (as now with successive Israeli regimes) is to exert pressure to surrender at any cost. The importance of "consultation before partition," Chamberlain said, was that "it could be represented as the choice of the Czechoslovak government," as the expulsion of Gush Katif was sold as the "choice" of a supposedly representative and "democratic" Israel and the "rightwing nationalist" Ariel Sharon. Blackmail in the form of negotiations "would have a more favorable reception from the British public" then as it may from the American public today. Above all, Chamberlain added negotiations and eventual Czech agreement, like a handshake on the White House lawn "would dispose of any idea that we were ourselves carving up Czechoslovak territory." And so it is with administrations in Washington since that of Jimmy Carter.
Given the orchestrated UN uproar against Israel, meant to legitimize Hamas and cover Hizbollah's activities in Lebanon, it is clear that Mr. Carter's book, its title and the timing of its release were not an isolated exercise in individual bias. The resignations from his institute at Emory University are apt but come very late in the day. And as to Russia, the major supplier of Iran's nuclear and missile program and former backer of Egypt, Syria and the PLO: why did American and England let them into the UN at all when the world body was created "to foster democracy?" Because Russia shares and serves, as they have since 1917, various global interests of the Anglo-American elite, mainly the drive toward a regionalized world system that uses constant wars of attrition or "terror" to impose security measures on their own populations.
The gap between the agenda and methods of the diplomatic top tier, western parliaments and general electorates was strong then as now. When six months of betrayals, pressure on the French, and green lights to Hitler had wrung acquiescence from Paris and crippling concessions from the Czechs, Chamberlain found that he had created a monster. At a meeting in Godesborg on September 22, 1938, having repeatedly been assured of and received British diplomatic help Hitler was in a fury, demanding the whole pie immediately without impressive treaties. For everyone but Chamberlain and his clique and the top French diplomatic group it was a deal-breaker; the English and French Cabinets rejected the entire partition plan; the Czechs formed a new Cabinet that rejected it; the Russians served notice that if German forces moved they would invade East Prussia and protect the Czechs. But Chamberlain would not let go of his grand design. With the help of the media his group created a war scare, a terror war in Britain based on grossly exaggerated descriptions of German military might. Having previously ordered the Czechs not to mobilize their forces (shades of summer 2006) they now ordered that they do so. Pronouncements of Germany's military omnipotence filled the news. Through dominance of the media, a small clique can impose its agenda and views on a nation, via hysteria and manufactured despair when they feel it useful.
If Mahmoud Abbas announced tomorrow that he was going to take all of Israel from Eilat to Lebanon and Jerusalem to Tel Aviv would it create as great revulsion and stir? Would Congress, let along the EU or Russia formerly repudiate Oslo and the Road Map? No; the State Department would not even need to order Olmert to mobilize the IDF (for show) and to flood the complicit media with stories about dirty bombs exploding in American cities in order to secure Israel's unilateral surrender, termed "disengagement."
One last parallel to emphasize: just as the Czech armed forces' quantity were on par with those of Germany in fall 1938 (the British government knew this via its military attaches on the continent) and the quality of Czech forces far superior, so is the quality of Israel's armed forces today still far superior to those of its neighbors. The vulnerability of the Germans then was as evident as the weakness of Fatah and Israel's Arab neighbors now. So grave was the German position that the German Chief of Staff and other top officials were prepared to assassinate Hitler on September 28, 1938 if and when he gave the order to invade the Czechs; Arafat, too, in 1982 and afterward, and now Abbas have been and are saved by America and by Israeli regimes. Without its mountain barrier, Jewish settlements, and with EU, UN and NATO troops ready for Judea, Samaria and Gaza military advantages will be gravely compromised as happened to the Czechs without the Sudetenland. And with all governments and major media claiming that "the cycle of violence" will rise without Israeli concessions (that invite attacks by Hamas and Hizbollah on the "apartheid" state and suppress Israeli response), the military advantages of the victim, as great as those in 1938 can be neutered. Milner's words that Palestine "must never become a Jewish state" will be fulfilled.
British diplomats had no problem having Americans rebuild the continent their policies had led to ruin; Anglo-American and EU diplomats would have no problem letting Americans rebuild Israel after a similar process of "consultation before partition." It's good for business and demonstrates authority. Mesopotamia may not be the only killing field in the Middle East unless a sovereign Israel finds and rights itself.
History does repeat; but with awareness of the pattern the game need not again be played till the checkmate: holocaust and a huge spike in global terror.
Gamla
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