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British PM Neville Chamberlain holds worthless treaty received from Hitler, proclaims "peace in our time"

In September 1938, Hitler escalated his diplomatic assault on the Czechoslovak government. After Nazi elements in the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia with a majority of ethnic Germans, held violent demonstrations, Hitler demanded that the Sudetenland be ceded to Germany. The Sudeten Germans were being slaughtered, he said.

On September 30, France, the UK, Italy and Nazi Germany signed the Munich Pact. It gave Czechoslovakia two options: either cede the Sudetenland to Germany as Hitler desired, or the French would not honor their prior commitment to protect Czechoslovakia. In return, Hitler promised to leave the rest of the country alone and signed a peace treaty with the UK.

Czechoslovakia, which was not invited to the conference, had little choice. It allowed the Germans to occupy the Sudetenland, which meant that it lost “its defensible border and fortifications,” 70% of its iron and steel industry and 70% of its electricity (Wikipedia). In November, more pieces of the country were bitten off and by March 1939 what was left became a German protectorate. And as we all know, a few months later Chamberlain’s ‘peace’ evaporated.

This September will mark 73 years since the Munich Pact, which has become emblematic of the failure of appeasement to bring peace. And Europe is eerily preparing to repeat history, with the Arab world as the Third Reich:

Several European countries are threatening to recognize an independent Palestinian state — on the basis of the pre-1967 boundaries to include the West Bank, Gaza, and with East Jerusalem as its capital — if Israel refuses to return to the negotiating table with the Palestinian Authority by September. Given the new “reconciliation deal” between the rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas, Europeans are effectively demanding that Israel negotiate with Hamas, an Islamist terrorist group unambiguously committed to Israel’s destruction …

In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy, in an interview with the L’Express newsmagazine on May 5, said: “If the peace process is still dead in September, France will face up to its responsibilities on the central question of the recognition of a Palestinian state. The idea that there is still plenty of time is dangerous. Things have to be brought to a conclusion” before September. Sarkozy also said that during the next few months, European countries would try “to relaunch the peace process along with the Americans, because Europe cannot be the main one paying for Palestine and yet remain a minor figure politically in the matter” …

In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on May 3 that Britain is prepared to formally recognize an independent Palestinian state in September unless Israel opens peace talks with the Palestinians. That warning came after Netanyahu told Cameron that the so-called unity pact between rival Palestinian factions Fatah, which rules the West Bank, and Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement that rules Gaza, is a “tremendous blow to peace and a great victory for terrorism.” Palestinian leaders say the deal is a major step towards an independent state, but Israel fears the reconciliation will open the door to Hamas militants being deployed in the West Bank.

— Soeren Kern, Europeans Threaten to Recognize Palestinian State Unless Israel Negotiates With Terrorist Group

In other words, with the Palestinian Arabs playing the role of the Sudeten Germans, Europe is trying to force Israel to give up its defensible borders, in return for what will clearly not be “peace in our time.”

True, they are not demanding immediate cession of the territories, just that Israel will “return to the negotiating table.” But it is the Arabs who have refused to negotiate, insisting on prior concessions such as a freeze on all construction in Judea/Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. This means that what is really being dictated to Israel is that it must agree to whatever conditions are demanded by the Palestinian Authority — which today includes the genocidal Hamas.

Of course analogies are just analogies. Israel isn’t Czechoslovakia — it is capable of defending itself against the Arabs and Iran. And while Chamberlain likely really believed that the piece of paper he received from Hitler would bring peace, it’s hard to imagine that today’s European governments are stupid enough to believe that forcing Israel to expose its soft underbelly to Hamas will result in anything other than war.

Unlike in 1938, the US is engaged in this conflict, and what it does could have a great effect on the outcome. The US President is expected to make a speech about the Middle East in the near future, and what he says will probably have a profound effect on what happens between now and September.

Technorati Tags: Munich pact, appeasement, Israel, Arabs, Europe

I haven’t written anything about the Tony Kushner – CUNY – Jeffrey Wiesenfeld story until today. My feeling was: who cares about Yet Another Jewish Intellectual Who Hates Israel?

But today the level of injustice has risen to the point that it’s impossible to ignore.

The story:

Playwright Kushner, a Jewish Voice for Peace member who has accused Israel of ethnic cleansing, called its creation a ‘mistake’, etc. (see a collection  of his remarks here), was slated to get an honorary degree from the City University of New York’s John Jay College. The University’s Board of Trustees, called upon to rubber-stamp it, chose instead to table the nomination after an impassioned plea by trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld.

Three points:

1. An honorary degree is not a right, it is… an honor.
2. If the trustees get to vote on honorary degrees, even if they normally approve them by acclamation, then they have a right to not approve one.
3. The trustees are allowed to speak before voting.

Kushner and friends went postal. Kushner claimed he had been “slandered.” His supporters claimed academic freedom and freedom of speech denied. A special meeting of the executive committee of the Board of Trustees was called, and it voted to give the degree to Kushner.

OK, they can do that. But now a campaign, led by CUNY’s faculty union, is being waged to get Wiesenfeld kicked off of the Board of Trustees:

In 2001, he called participation in an October “teach-in” sponsored by the union about the 9/11 attacks “seditious.” In 2006, he blasted a book that Baruch College had chosen for its freshman reading, “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning,” by Chris Hedges, calling it “deeply offensive” and “anti-Semitic.”

“That’s overstepping one’s role as a trustee,” [faculty union president Dr. Barbara] Bowen said. “There’s a consistent pattern of vilifying students and particularly faculty whose political views he objects to. He is entitled to his political views, but to use those views to interfere with academic freedom is not acceptable.” — NY Times

Bowen clearly thinks that ‘academic freedom’ means the absolute right for faculty to be political activists in the classroom, and that any criticism of such activism constitutes ‘interference’ with it, a firing offense for a trustee. Neither of these propositions is true.

Academic freedom is a controversial subject, but a reasonable understanding of it is that faculty have a right to propound unpopular points of view in their fields and to be free of coercion based on their personal politics. There is also a concomitant obligation to engage in honest inquiry, to teach in an impartial and disinterested way.

Wiesenfeld has a right and indeed a duty as a trustee to speak out on matters like the fitness of Tony Kushner for an honorary degree.

Technorati Tags: Tony Kushner, CUNY, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld

News item:

German national railway company Deutsche Bahn will cease working on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem train line because it passes through the West Bank, German newspaper Der Spiegel reported this week.

According to the report, the railway company decided to abandon the project following mounting pressure from German, Palestinian and Israeli elements, headed by the Coalition of Women for Peace – an Israeli feminist organization…

Project coordinator Merav Amir lauded the decision of the German government, saying “I want to congratulate the German government for making such a clear and bold statement about the illegality of this train route under international law.

So who and what is “The Coalition of Women for Peace” (we won’t even ask what train routes and Israel-bashing have to do with feminism)? Let me quote NGO Monitor:

As of 2009, Coalition of Women for Peace (CWP) has ten members, including New Profile, Bat Shalom, Machsom Watch and Women in Black, and provides an additional platform by which these NGOs promote their campaigns…

Reflecting its political agenda, CWP states that it “is committed to the struggle to end the occupation”; claims “to act for peace, justice, and equality in the Israeli Society,” and uses demonization rhetoric such as referring to the security barrier as “The Apartheid Wall.”

CWP also joined “Zochrot” and “New profile” in celebration of “The 59th Anniversary of the Naqba” during Israel’s Independence Day.

CWP promotes the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement through a project entitled “Who Profits from the Occupation,” “exposing companies and corporations involved in the occupation.”

Also involved in campaigns against Ahava cosmetics and Agrexco produce in Italy, and in support of the Berkeley divestment vote.

Lobbied the British government in December 2009 to “Enable Prosecution of Israeli War Criminals.”

Sounds like a real pro-Israel, Zionist outfit, doesn’t it? Let’s follow the money. Surely they are funded by Iran or Saudi Arabia? But here’s what NGO Monitor tells us:

In 2006-2009, the New Israel Fund (NIF) authorized grants worth $294,129 to CWP (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009).

“Major donors” since 2000 include the European Union, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (587,189 NIS from the German government), Heinrich Böll Stiftung (from the German government), the Moriah Fund, Aaron Back and the Ford Israel Fund, and SIVMO. (This funding does not include support for individual NGOs in the coalition.)

So in addition to the hostile Europeans, liberal American Jews have unknowingly been supporting this viciously anti-Israel organization!

A prominent member of the NIF, chair of its “Pluralism Grants Committee,” is the Union for Reform Judaism’s nominee for its new President, Rabbi Richard Jacobs, who describes himself as “proudly and strongly pro-Israel.”

I doubt that Rabbi Jacobs’ committee approved these particular grants, which do not appear to be related to religious pluralism. But is it possible that he could hold his position without being aware of what NIF was funding?

I don’t think so.

Technorati Tags: BDS, Coalition of Women for Peace, NIF, Israel, Rabbi Richard Jacobs

Barry Rubin:

There is no excuse for President Obama not to utter six simple words: The Assad dictatorship must go now.

Perhaps a thousand Syrians have been killed so far in the ruthless suppression of dissent orchestrated by Bashar al-Assad. I suppose the administration plans to wait until Bashar surpasses the record set by his father Hafez, who put down the 1982 revolt in Hama at a cost estimated between 17,000 and 40,000 dead.

But it’s not like the Syrian regime is such a bargain for the rest of the world, either. Recently, Hillary Clinton reiterated her remarkable judgment that Assad could be a reformer. Here’s how one Israeli blogger responds:

This would pathetic and laughable if were not so sad and dangerous. The sanctions that [Clinton] mentioned were mild and toothless. She says all this after a host of Syrian/Assadian deeds demonstrating the bloodthirsty, tyrannical nature of the Syrian/Assadian regime. Has she forgotten the murder of Rafiq Hariri in Beirut, only six years ago, together with two dozen other people?? How about all the murders of the anti-Syrian leaders in Lebanon, members of parliament and journalists, etc? What about the short-lived Lebanese president, Rene Mu`awad, 20 years ago, after the Taif Accord? What about Kamal Jumblatt and Bashir Jemayel? What about the 20,000 to 30,000 Syrians slaughtered by Junior Assad’s father, Hafiz, in Hama in 1982? And Bashar who shows no mercy to his own people eagerly helps the Hizbullah in Lebanon to kill as many Jews in Israel as possible. Does any of that make an impression in Washington?

Apparently not. Nor, says Barry Rubin, does this:

Syria’s government has allied itself and helps in every way the terrorists who have killed hundreds of Americans in Iraq. And those terrorists belong to al-Qaida. Remember them? The group until recently headed by Usama bin Laden that carried out the September 11 attacks. This is also the strongest and most significant remaining al-Qaida member group.

What is there about the Assad regime that the US doesn’t get? Why did we return our ambassador (who was withdrawn as a result of the Hariri murder) while Assad was helping insurgents enter Iraq and supplying Hizballah?

I am not a conspiracy theorist. I am not too paranoid. But if you wanted to react to the upheavals in the Middle East in the absolutely worst possible way for Israel, you might do this:

1. Fail to support Iranian dissidents or take effective action against the Iranian nuclear program.
2. Fail to take action against the Hizballah takeover in Lebanon.
3. But do encourage the overthrow of the Mubarak regime, so that it can be replaced by one which will be friendlier to Iran and Hamas and which is likely to throw away the peace treaty.
4. And do allow your enemy and Israel’s, Bashar Assad, to put down the challenge to his dictatorship.

And do these other things:

1. Prevent Israel from a) overthrowing Hamas in Operation Cast Lead and b) defeating it by economic warfare.
2. Help the PLO build an army to fight Israel with.
3. Support the Palestinian position that the lack of negotiations is Israel’s fault.

Is that how you support an ally that is more reliable, militarily stronger, and closer to your democratic values than any Arab nation? And is that the way to look after American interests?

Technorati Tags: Syria, Assad, Israel

The NY Jewish Week’s Gary Rosenblatt discusses the plague of Beinartism among liberal rabbinical students:

Stepping back, it seems that the Peter Beinart Syndrome — the concern, expressed a year ago in The New York Review of Books that young American Jews are choosing liberal values over Zionist ones — has reached our liberal rabbinic seminaries.

That shouldn’t be surprising. Our future liberal denomination rabbis are prime examples of the current generational clash over values, history and emotional attachment to Israel. On the one side are young people, raised as liberals and humanitarians, who have grown up seeing Israel through the prism of intifadas, harsh and inconclusive wars in Lebanon and Gaza, and increasing international isolation. On the other side are their elders who recall the courageous, even miraculous, early successes of the Jewish State and who are not afraid to call themselves nationalists when it comes to Israel.

First noted by Danny Gordis (and by our friends Moty and Udi here), it’s surprising that this issue waited so long for its 15 minutes of fame. As the controversy about the selection of Rabbi Richard Jacobs as URJ head shows, it’s not only the students and rabbis fresh out of school who are affected.

What did you expect? These students didn’t spring fully formed from the head of Zeus into the seminary. They went to American colleges and universities first, where they drank from the firehose of anti-Zionism that exists there.

And that’s not all they drank:

• They learned that the only legitimate ethical position is a universalist one (although strangely enough, ‘third-world’ nationalism and tribalism escape criticism).
• They learned that the US is one of the primary forces for evil in the world, and is irredeemably racist and corrupt (although such characteristics in its enemies get a pass).
• They learned that truth is relative to politics, so if, for example it serves the political ends of a Nadia Abu El-Haj to deny Jewish provenance in the Land of Israel, then she can receive academic tenure for saying that, despite its objective falsehood.
• And they learned that Humpty Dumpty was correct, words can mean whatever you want them to mean, so J Street can be pro-Israel and Rabbi Jacobs a Zionist.

They also seem to have learned that it’s OK to apply the double standard to Israel: you can call Israel a racist apartheid state because of its actions to keep terrorists from killing its population, but they rarely mention the racist propaganda and incitement to murder flowing from all the Arab (Palestinian and other) media, schools, etc. You can criticize Israel for not realizing full civil rights for Arab citizens — although it tries, in very difficult circumstances — while ignoring the fact that Jews aren’t even allowed to live in some Arab countries, even as second-class citizens.

So I’m not surprised that these young people who go to good universities grow up to be anti-Zionist and even antisemitic. What else would you expect?

Technorati Tags: American Jews, Israel, Beinartism, rabbinical students