Israel should choose victory over appeasement

By Ted Belman

Caroline Glick in her latest article, The path to the next Lebanon War recommends that Israel and the US be wary of appeasement. Her point being that appeasement invites war.

    In the lead-up to both [Gaza and Lebanon] withdrawals, Israel’s national leadership told the public that the only reason terrorists from these territories were attacking us was that we were there. If we went away, they would stop hating us and we would be safe. We were the problem, not them, so we could solve the problem by giving them what they wanted. [..]

    The second lesson the public learned is that when a nation goes to war against an enemy that seeks its destruction, it must fight to win. You cannot fight a half-war against an implacable foe. And if you fail to win, you lose.

Glick argues that “Olmert believed it was possible to fight to a draw without losing.” but says he was wrong.

    “..there was only one way for Israel to defeat Hezbollah – by regaining control over southern Lebanon”.

Although she says,

    “But Olmert – and Livni – wouldn’t even consider retaking control of South Lebanon. The option was discarded contemptuously as a delusional recipe for forcing Israel back into the “Lebanese quagmire.” The fact that the “Lebanese quagmire” came to Israel after we left Lebanon, and that it will only end when Israel defeats Hezbollah, was completely ignored.”

While I totally agree with this I do not attribute it, as she does, to a policy of appeasement. I attribute it entirely to an abhorance of being occupiers. Its all about ending the occupation, not extending it.

But maybe that’s semantics only. If we were focussed on keeping Judea and Samaria rather on ending the occupation. We would be far better off.

July 12, 2011 | 13 Comments »

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13 Comments / 13 Comments

  1. I was shocked by that poll also. I didn’t have time to deal with it but fealt something was wrong.

    Gurza, you should have provided the link first off.

  2. @ gurza:

    400 hundred American families own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans. In Israel about 20 families own more than all trhe rest and control our politicians. It’s some of them who desire closer ties to EU but it is also some of these oligarchs who illegally trade with Iran and other enemies of Israel

    Never confuse the Israeli people with most of these. There were Jews who supported the Nazis and even were part of Hitlers government.

    But your comment :

    Yamit”: Fact- Israel is an associate member of the E.U. -Fact- Israel made an application to become an associate member. Fact- Israel shows a strong desire to upgrade its associate membership status. Fact- there has been no outcry NOT HAVE THIS UPGRADE.

    Opinion- Mine- There is no way you can join a private club such as EU and remain aloof from its influence. Just as you cannot go to heaven without dying….if I should be wrong, provide a link to contradict what I write.

    In all probability will be mute as I expect a disintegration of the EU within 2-3 years. There will be nothing to join and what is left no-one would entrain the thought even if by some miracle they survive. I predicted this to you over two years ago. It seems to be developing as I type.

    Eight European Countries Charging Off A Sovereign Debt Cliff In 2010
    Content

    Half of the Eurozone’s sixteen economies are at risk of becoming ‘unsustainable’, essentially bankrupt.

    After driving a wedge between Japan and the US,driving a wedge between the EU and the US is next. China will state publicly that EU debt, bunds even gilts are more attractive than US debt. China will speak to the investment opportunities in Greece, Spain and east Europe as being more attractive than holding US debt whether they are are not. China will seek to move a large chunk out of US debt into EU related investments.

    The US will complain and talk about national security and capital controls. China will then tell the EU that the US is holding up the show and the Chinese investment of hundreds of billions of dollars into the EU markets. Even with all their problems, China is right where they want to be.

    Deficits and the ensuing sovereign debt used to be cyclical or structural. Now we have zombical ones: debt to patch holes in broken financial systems and deficit to prop up the deluge from a broken financial system. Ireland and Spain’s systems broke under the real estate bubble pops. The UK’s financial sector from leverage and bad investments, Greece is none of the above: the financial sector was not leveraged and its core capital was very high, never invested a penny in funny securitisations, no real estate bubble.

    Perhaps it is because Greece was already and chronically in stimuli deficits which made their banks and real estate market more risk averse. So the deficits saved Greece from over-extending its credit in the good times and now they can change their fiscal behaviour to re-align. Alas, many other european countries dont have this “fat” to trim unless they take the stimuli back or cut down on other expenses.

    World Collapse Explained in 3 Minutes

    Niall Ferguson’s Complete And Definitive Guide To The Sovereign Debt Crisis

  3. Anyone want to join the EU? 🙂 Americas problems a small potatoes compared to the EU!


    Europe’s debt problem at tipping point

    “The only conclusion that I can draw from this Monday swoon is that we’ve hit the tipping point: This is the start of the eurozone endgame. It is now only a matter of time before the eurozone breaks apart. Therefore, get back in your seats, buckle up, and brace yourselves good—‘cause it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.— For those of you who somehow have missed out on this movie: Europe has been in trouble because the nations of the periphery—Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, the so-called PIIGS—have massive sovereign debts which they simply cannot pay. Source: Gonzalo Lira” Gonzalo Lira

    It is fundamental to our ponzi scheme monetary system that defaults must occur from time to time to right the system. All this bailout nonsense does is delay the inevitable and make it worse when it happens.

    Why you say? Simple. Money based on debt can never be repaid in full because the amount to be repaid always increases due to interest. You can keep the ponzi scheme going for a while by using new debt to repay the old and live with the inflation that causes. But from time to time you have to just admit its not going to be paid back and default on some of the debt. This will always cause some banks to fail because they are on the hook to pay back the debt when the borrower doesn’t. Indeed, the default has already happened. The debate is about what to call it, and to see how many will fall for the invented name.

    It doesn’t take an economist to have realized this before the first bailouts began. We’ve been saying that this was a waste of tax payers money from the beginning. In fact we saw this coming many years ago (and that’s why we setup the website). It Just goes to show that politicians and bankers can’t face the reality until it was staring at them in the face. All so they can create a European superstate, what stupidity.

    It is obvious what they are trying to do. Even top ECB officials have finally come clean on the objective of the Euro. They set up an unstable currency system so that when it collapses, each country would have to be bailed out by the ECB and be under thge thumb of Brussels. Then each country in the Eurozone would be subject to a takeover Soviet style to create a political union that the people of said nations would never had agreed to and the politicians would only agree to in the most dire circumstances. The creation of a European superstate is the objective and is akin to Hitler’s idea of Europe. They say it’s to prevent war, but the likely outcome is war with the federal system. Nobody in Europe wants to be “European”, can’t the bureaucrats in Brussels see that?

    The obvious answer is yes, since all they care about is power and money, and the creation of the superstate will give them unelected total power as an oligarchy. But that is all on the hush hush if you know what I mean. All countries in the EU should get out NOW before it’s too late!

  4. email rcvd, in my inbox

    THIS IS A REMINDER OF A SIMILAR ONE THAT’S BEEN AROUND BEFORE.

    Bad news from France …REAL BAD!

    Once again, the real news in France is conveniently not being reported as it should. To give you an idea of what’s going on in that country where there are now between 5 and 6 million Muslims and about 600,000 Jews, here is an E-mail that came from a Jew living in France .

    Please read! “Will the world say nothing – again – as it did in
    Hitler’s time?” He writes: “I AM A JEW — therefore I am forwarding this to everyone on all my e-mail lists. I will not sit back and do nothing. Nowhere have the flames of anti-Semitism burned more furiously than in France . In Lyon , a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire. In Montpellier , the Jewish religious center was firebombed; so were synagogues in Strasbourg Marseilles ; so was a
    Jewish school in Creteil – all recently.. A Jewish sports club in Toulouse was attacked with Molotov cocktails and on the statue of Alfred Dreyfus , in Paris, the words ‘Dirty Jew’ were painted. In Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish football team with sticks and metal bars. The bus that takes Jewish children to school in Aubervilliers has been attacked three times in the last 14 months.

    According to the Police, metropolitan Paris has seen 10 to 12
    anti-Jewish incidents PER DAY in the past 30 days. Walls in Jewish neighborhoods have been defaced with slogans proclaiming ‘Jews to the gas chambers’ and ‘Death to the Jews.’ A gunman opened fire on a kosher butcher’s shop (and, of course, the butcher) in Toulouse, France .. A Jewish couple in their 20’s were beaten up by five men in Villeurbanne , France (the woman was pregnant) A Jewish school was
    broken into and vandalized in Sarcelles, France . This was just in the past week.”

    “So I call on you, whether you are a fellow Jew, a friend, or merely a person with the capacity and desire to distinguish decency from depravity, to do – at least – these three simple things:

    First, care enough to stay informed. Don’t ever let yourself become deluded into thinking that this is not your fight. I remind you of what Pastor Neimoller said in World War II : ‘ First they came for the Communists , and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.’

    Second, boycott France and French products. Only the Arab countries are more toxically anti-Semitic and, unlike them, France exports more than just oil and hatred. So boycott their wines and their perfumes. Boycott their clothes and their foodstuffs. Boycott their movies. Definitely boycott their shores. If we are resolved we can exert amazing pressure and, whatever else we may know about the French, we most certainly know that they are like a cobweb in a hurricane in the face of well-directed pressure.

    Third, send this along to your family, your friends, and your
    co-workers. Think of all of the people of good conscience that you know and let them know that you – and the people that you care – about need their help.

    The number one bestselling book in France is….’ September 11 : The Frightening Fraud’ which argues that no plane ever hit the Pentagon !

  5. Ted pls release comment in moderation and afterwards watch them because it explain where Obama is coming from.

  6. A poll from Che Guevara U? Get real!!! Your post was linked to JP Even on the BGU web site where the original was taken verbatim not details of the poll were given other than the results.

    Not good enough to ascribe credibility. They probably polled their own faculty and student body for the poll. A more representative sample you can find in the JP talkbacks.

    Example:

    Author: Sartre Jean Paul
    Country: Paris, Le Cirque Bouglione

    07/13/2011 00:58

    Poll was done during a Meretz party meeting. Just funny, this just far-left wishful thinking. It was fun to read this non-sense paper. The Poll was performed on April 1st ! I have another poll, 82 % of Arabs are ready to convert to Judaism because this is the religion of their forefathers. In Jordan it is only 75 %. The only serious questions that needs still to be answered is converting to Ashkenazy or Sephardic Judaism ? To be able to eat Tahina on Passover I would recommend Sephardic…

    Definitely a leftist hoax.

    Author: Chaim
    Country: Israel
    07/12/2011 20:25

    Does anybody really believe a majority of Israelis want E.U. troops stationed our our borders? This is definitely a leftist hoax. If Israelis wanted such lunacy, Labor and Meretz would have been elected to govern us. Instead the leftist parties are being voted out of existence. This poll doesn’t deserve the slightest credibility.

    The EU is going broke.

    Author: Stephen
    Country: Switzerland.

    07/12/2011 18:06

    The FOREX market as from this morning, here in Zurich is offloading Euros,with orders to buy Swiss Francs.The Euro has once again come under the microscope,there is issue with Greece,the new possibility of an Italian failure,the distinct possibility that crude will not settle and above all the interest hike by the ECB. Those that believe that Germany can stave off this crises are dreaming. Israel, forget about Europe,the EU and above all stay above the financial meltdown.Israel has always been admired by EU Bankers.Not to forget all those billions in EU,Asian and US Venture Capital.G-day.

    Isn’t BGU where they boycott everything Israel?

    Author: Claudia
    Country: Tampa USA

    07/12/2011 15:49

    And entertain EU professors that seem to hate the state of Israel as well? Perhaps this study was taken among these types as it does not seem to reflect the more conservative mood of the general population. Leftist liberals have a propensity for lying, hence their numbers!

    Israelis are nuts if

    Author: Charlie
    Country:
    07/12/2011 14:22

    they fall for the nonsensical idea of joining the collapsing Euro and being subjected to European Parliament dictates. 64% percent would support NATO peacekeeping troops. ROFL After NATO’s mess in Lybia? Good grief, either the survey is a fraud or Israelis have truly been mislead by the media.

    Time to wake up…

    Author: Ariel
    Country:
    07/12/2011 13:35

    The poll doesnt count the average Israeli voice… just being dependant on Europe will not solve our problems. Europe has an under-current of bias against the State of Israel. News of Jewish anti-semitism in Europe is common news now & I wonder who are the naive 81% who voted. Being realistic… Greece is in chaos, Spain, Portugal and Italy are on the brink of economic collapse, Britain is in debt & so is France… why is Israel being made a scapegoat of Europe once again… or is it the Strong economy existing now that bothers many up there… Israelis are not sheep of economic pundits!!!

    The above is only a small sample of public opinion, real public opinion.

    Submit the full poll with questions and breakdown of those surveyed otherwise this poll is a vested interest leftist fraud like most everything else coming out of that anti Israel hotbed pretending to be a University.

    I stay. Do better or “Go Gentle into That Good Night”

  7. The US is in fact siding with Lebanon in maritime border dispute – reported by israelmatzav.

    Now I heard on IBA news tonight, that Cyprus has promised Lebanon to re-examine its maritime border agreement with Israel.

    This could lead to the lion of Benjamin to have to roar to defend Israel’s legal sea, gas/oil containing, territory.

  8. @ gurza:

    I’ll bite, who in Israel wants today to join the EU?

    Show any recent link you can find. Then get lost when you come up with zip.

  9. Israel is taking the path to pragmatism rather than Idealism. Israel would rather join the E.U. ( A most reprehensible group of bankrupt nations )rather than remain true to its torah precepts.

    And that is about the size of it.