The Wages of Appeasement

Excellent observations and advice from someone
who has experienced the 'wages of appeasement'
firsthand.

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The Wages of Appeasement

P. David Hornik
The American Spectator
1/12/2005

Excerpt

JERUSALEM -- My life has, in a sense, been bracketed by acts of political appeasement. In March 1938 Germany, beneficiary so far of British appeasement, invaded Austria and announced its "Anschluss" (Annexation) into the German Reich. That autumn both of my parents' families fled Vienna for New York City; a few years later my parents met there, eventually married, and I was born there in 1954. Other relatives stayed in Vienna, thinking to weather the storm, and were eventually shipped to extermination camps -- becoming part of the 60 million or so fatalities of World War II.

Over the past eleven years in Israel, I've witnessed the consequences of another act of appeasement known as the "Oslo accords." Again a thuggish individual with a history of murderous brutality was treated by democratic leaders as a reasonable person whose real desire was peace. The reason I'm still alive is that this time the Jewish community under attack is armed and has some ability to defend itself. On the other hand, for various reasons Israel has not been able to decisively defeat the assault, which has now lasted considerably longer than World War II and is still continuing. At the moment suicide bombings in cafes and buses have stopped, but Israeli towns and villages in and near Gaza are under constant attack and the security forces are on constant alert.

Why are the wages of appeasement so dire? Why does this seem to be one act that history does not ultimately tolerate or forgive, exacting a terrible price? It must be because appeasement -- treating the likes of Hitler or Arafat, or Stalin or Kim Il-Sung, as benign, rational individuals just like you and me who just want to improve situations -- is a very basic lapse of adult functioning. The appeasers who treat monsters as friends, sign "peace" pacts with them and proudly wave them for all to see, are like very small children who haven't yet learned to make the most fundamental discriminations about reality, who will cheerfully pet the dangerous dog or jump off the slide unless watched closely every second.

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