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By Mladen Andrijasevic
November 21, 2007
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In an interview in the Jerusalem Post published on Friday Nov 9 Tony Blair urged Israel to make a "psychological shift" from indifference and skepticism about the prospects of progress with the Palestinians to an active determination to "make it happen on the right terms."
On Nov 5 in the Times of London Jonathan Evans, the Director-General of MI5, wrote that there are at least 2000 individuals who MI5 believed "posed a direct threat to national security and public safety". He said children as young as 15 were being recruited for terrorist-related activity by al-Qaeda.
Is Tony Blair going to urge Brits to make a "psychological shift" towards these 2000 and al-Qaeda who supports them? Why not urge Brits to "make it happen on the right terms?" Apparently not. Sounds unreasonable. But why does it not sound unreasonable when suggested to Israelis? Why is it that all common sense is abandoned when Israel is discussed? After all, the ideology espoused by al-Qaeda and Hamas is one and the same.
In the interview Tony Blair says: "There is this myth that values like freedom and democracy are basically Western values and that there is a different culture which we in our stupidity don't understand, where these things don't matter. My absolutely fundamental belief is that this is complete and total bulldust and that there has never been a case of people choosing not to be free " Yet forty percent of British Muslims between the ages of 16 and 24 said they would prefer to live under sharia law in Britain, a legal system based on the teachings of the Koran. Tony Blair's "absolutely fundamental belief" is at odds with the facts. Yet he forges ahead as if the facts were irrelevant.
Tony Blair is not alone. There is a plethora of politicians who have completely lost it. The remaining few who still understand what is at stake like John Bolton and Newt Gingrich have been pushed out. They write articles in the blogosphere which in today's world is a parallel dimension of reality which does not intersect with the world of mainstream media. How many people are aware of what they have to say? Only now, a few days ago, have I read Newt Gingrich's article delivered the American Enterprise Institute on September 10.
It is incredible that decisions in both the Israeli and US governments, let alone European, are made by people who are lazy to read books on Islam. Why is it that those who during the Cold War had a fair understanding of what Marx, Lenin and Stalin and their followers stood for are today completely ignorant about what jihadists believe in and why. Ask about abrogation and you will almost certainly get a blank stare. Never in human history has the future of our civilization depended on the group so reluctant to look into quite easily accessible information.
When will the absurdity of today's politicians' solutions have reached the point when the majority will be disgusted to listen to them any more? In one of Milan Kundera's novels he describes the mood in late 1968 in Czechoslovakia. Everyone after the occupation of Czechoslovakia knew that the meetings to support the Soviet invasion were a sham, every participant in meetings knew that everyone else knew it was a farce, and they all went along. They all felt horrible, humiliated and powerless. The same atmosphere is felt today.
Winston Churchill in the his "The Second World War, Vol 1: The Gathering Storm " on page 594 describes the events of May 7, 1940 which changed the course of world history. "From the benches behind the government Mr. Amery quoted, amid ringing cheers, Cromwell's impervious words to the Long Parliament: 'You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!'"
At what point will history repeat itself and another Leo Amery will rise to speak in the Commons, or the Knesset? I doubt it will make Olmert resign as it did Chamberlain. Worse, there is hardly a Churchill to take his place.
We are not there yet. Today's politicians have learned nothing from the past. They are too lazy to read a book, too eager to be seen "doing something". The authors of peace plans are accountable to no one. We await the damage from the next round of "peacemaking" and hope someone will finally wake up. In the meantime events today reminiscent of 1930s Rhineland, Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia are zooming by.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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