APPEASEMENT?

Victor Bloom MD

A few days ago there was an important misunderstanding between the president of the United States and the president of Israel. Sharon, the beleaguered president of a country that has been fighting for its very existence since the UN partition of 1948, accused our new president, who has been provoked beyond belief by the historic fire-bombing of New York's jewel and symbol of our power and success, the World Trade Center.

This misunderstanding threatens to create a rift in the longstanding relationship of the United States and its only ally in the Middle East, Israel. Without United States support Israel is doomed. It is a tiny country of about five million surrounded by a huge land mass and hundreds of millions of Arab Muslims, many of whom are fired up for a 'jihad' (literally, struggle) or holy war, one which has been interpreted as the individual's struggle against sin, as well as the fanatic's struggle to rid the world of infidels, those who don't believe in Allah.

On the one hand, the struggle is religious, its history going back to the Crusades of the 11th century, in which those who did not accept Christ as the Savior were the infidel and had to be destroyed. On the other hand, the holy wars were excuses for the extension of political power. Now the struggle has been characterized as a cultural war, Western Civilization as opposed to the Third World, the developed world versus the undeveloped--- once again the have-nots against the haves.

The root of the cultural war has been evident in the struggle between the state of Israel and the would-be state of Palestine, the Jew and the Arab. An Arab colleague of mine, a psychiatric colleague from the 60's wrote me that the success of the new Jewish state, its scientific, industrial and technological accomplishments, the 'magic' of making the desert bloom, its modern development was a psychological thorn in the side of its Arab neighbors. He admitted it was envy and jealousy that inspired his native country, Egypt, to attempt an invasion in 1967, the infamous Yom Kippur war, in which a surprise attack was about to be launched on the highest holy day of the Jews.

As it turned out, the Israelis were ready for them and routed the Egyptian force. They could have advanced all the way to Cairo if they wanted, just as America could have advanced clear to Baghdad if it wanted in the recent Gulf War. But they did not and we did not, for various modern rationales--- it would have been seen as a massacre, a turkey-shoot, and civilized nations who espouse a certain Western (Judeo-Christian) morality do not kill for the sake of killing, do not over-react, do not take advantage of the stupidity and weakness of its enemies.

After World War II instead of destroying Germany, we gave it financial aid. Apparently we did learn a lesson from history, so that we would not be condemned to repeat it. After WWI Germany was punished and reduced to abject submission and left in a terrible state of poverty, a state which gave rise to its terrible reaction--- Hitler's Nazi Germany, which avenged its defeat in the Great War and undertook to destroy its former enemies and rule the world. Germany rebuilt, paid reparations to Israel and became our ally and trading partner. Similarly, tiny and over-crowded Japan attempted imperialist expansion in China and southest Asia and were blocked in their attempts by General Chennault and the American Flying Tigers. Our interference with their oil supply led to Pearl Harbor, and we had to fight another four years to conquer Japan. Rather than occupy and exploit it, rather than punish it, we gave them food, medicine, democracy and General MacArthur, liberating the Japanese people from their own warlords. And now Japan is our trading partner and ally.

It's a new world in which the winners of a war, rather than attempt to utterly destroy the enemy and render them unfit for any future aggression, reward them with aid and make them an ally and trading partner.

Is that what we expect Israel to do in Arabia? The U.S. and Israel will combine ideals and strengths and not fight back against terrorism? Sharon's accusation of appeasement comes at a time when Israel as well as America is the target of terrorism. Israeli self-defense has been called 'aggression' by the UN and much of world opinion except from the US and UK. After all, it was England which was sympathetic to Zionism, even before WWII, and gave up it's protectorate to the UN for partition, so that the Jews would finally have a homeland after the horrors of the Holocaust, in which European Jews were methodically exterminated in German death camps. The whole world was guilty in the Holocaust as no nation would accept Jewish refugees, and so the UN vote was affirmative to create a Jewish state in the then Palestine.

The partition was also supposed to create a Palestinian state for the indiginous Arabs, who were otherwise Jordanians, but on the first day of partition the Jewish settlers were attacked by Arabs from the many surrounding countries, but the Jewish forces won the day and the local Arabs fled, due to anti-Israel propaganda. That was the end of the idea of a Palestinian state, but since no Arab nation took in these Palestinian refugees, their condition deteriorated in refugee camps and terrorist acts began. Even though they fought and lost, they wanted their Palestinian state. The 'peace-process' failed and terrorism escalated and Israeli reaction escalated. No one knew how to resolve this conflict, which is similar to that in Ireland. Each side is convinced they are in the right and they hate the other side.

Up until now Israel's philosophy has been--- NO LAND FOR PEACE!. In other words, terrorism would not be rewarded. Now that the World Trade Center is destroyed and America is the targeted enemy, Bush tells the resistant Arab coalition, that we agree that there must be a Palestinian state. Sharon calls it 'appeasement.' If it isn't, what is it?

Perhaps a better word is 'real-politik.' We can't wipe out the terrorist network without Arab cooperation, and for that cooperation, they want us to force Israel to accept a Palestinian state. Israelis are convinced that would be the beginning of the end for them, as a sovereign Palestinian state could build up a military force with the help of their Arab cousins and neighbors and carry out what they have been wanting from the beginning, the destruction of Israel.