[Scythian]

Shimon Peres just said "The time had come for his nation to surrender its biblical heartland in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) to the Palestinian Arabs."

So I thought this post needed a fresh read ... http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=13455 which is exactly what Bibi said was behind it all ...

[Yo-Yo]

"Peace in our time."

[Egon]

Excellent read.

[Mad_as_heck]

25 years from now children will ask their history teachers “Why didn’t the world listen to people like Netanyahu when they had the chance?” The teacher will just ashamed, look away, and sigh.

Churchill was an ignorant “war monger” for 15 years before everything he had said became self-evident.

[FormerLib]

They should subtitle this one “Lessons to be Learned in Kosovo!”

[dfwgator]

In government, in parliament, and in the press, Chamberlain and Daladier were praised, cheered, and thanked for having traded land for peace. "My friends," said Chamberlain, "I believe it is peace in our time."

Meanwhile, at the same time, Hitler was telling his generals as they were planning the invasion of Poland, "Our enemies are little worms, I saw them in Munich."

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

He makes a good comparison. As much as I sympathize with Isreal and find the Palestinians in deep denial regarding Israel, I make these points:

1) This argument may have had more logic if Jordan still claimed the West Bank. Jordan claimed the West Bank after the partition of Palestine until after Jordan lost the territory in the War of 67. With the Sudetenland, Germany claimed the Sudetenland because of the Germans living there. With the West Bank, Jordan is not claiming the territory, Palestinians are claiming soverignty by virture of the partition of Palestine in 1948.
2) Israel is not likely to claim the West Bank as part of its territory or that the Palestinians are Israeli. If that happened and the Palestinians became Israeli citizens, they would soon outvote Jewish voters.
3) As long as the Palestinians seek to destroy Israel, I have no problem with the IDF keeping control of the West Bank. Even if peace is achieved, I would expect that the West Bank would not be militarized by the Palestinians. However, keeping the Palestinians in a state of limbo where they have no state, no self-determination is not right UNLESS the Palestinians are a security threat to Isreal. A successful peace treaty would be predicated on the same kind of peace as the Israeli-Egyptian Camp David treaty.
THE PROBLEM is not with Israel, it is that the Palestinians are in deep denial. That WILL have to change before true peace.

[Bon mots]

The other lesson to be learned is that you must totally destroy your enemies to end the fight. A bloody nose will not do.

WWI was a bloody nose for Germany. The population never saw their neighborhoods blown up and blood in the streets. They eagerly marched off to war again just 20 short years later.

WWII delivered a decisive and devastating defeat, the effect of shock and awe has not been forgotten. Same goes for Japan.

Nothing else has ever been proven to work.

If Israel doesn’t wipe its enemies off the map, they will win in the end.

[betty boop]

BTTT

[Bender2]

Re: The inhabitants of the Sudetenland, Hitler said, were predominantly German, and these three million Sudeten Germans deserved-what else?-the right of self-determination and a destiny separate from the other seven million inhabitants of Czechoslovakia...

Am I nuts or isn't this just about the same shinola the Liberal Democrats are screaming about that 12 million illegal immigrants we cannot round up and deport?

[attiladhun2]

Hitler’s dismemberment and eventual occupation of Czechoslovakia was part of higher strategic goal to isolate France and facilitate her fall when hostilities broke out.

He protected his strategic rear by means of a nonaggression pact with the USSR. The Comintern Pact with Italy closed that border with France. The annexation of the Sudetenland and Austria left the Czech’s outflanked and defenseless. Knowing she was abandoned by her allies, the Czechs fell with hardly a shot being fired.

Hitler also supported Franco’s Nationalists in Spain with money, arms, and even a “volunteer” military force (the Condor Legion), but skillfully used diplomacy to prevent France from intervening in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the loyalists.

The year 1939 was a bad one for France. That year saw the occupation of Czechoslovakia and the fall of Spain to the Nationalists. In the event of war with Germany, Spain under the loyalists would have undoubtedly sided with the Allies and French armies could have retreated toward the Pyrenees rather than surrender to the Germans. Aside from a few minor allies, such as Belgium, France was completely alone on the continent. Hitler accomplished this with an astounding economy of force, the Condor Legion suffered only about 300 casualties in Spain and about 30 Free Corps members lost their lives in Czechoslovakia.

[tcrlaf]

It’s Spring, 1939....

I have to wonder how many Americans are really paying attention.....