Britannia Radio

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Time to Reissue Sarah Honig's 2003 Warning

Mao Tse Tung, who was no slouch at political science, observed about his terrorists,

"If they don't lose, they win." Similarly, if Arab terror against Israel is not defeated, they

too win and they have been winning against Israel, whose leaders are satisfied with

"tit for tat" responses that only encourage the terrorists, who have unlimited manpower

and will not weaken before Israel weakens. A more strategic, effective response from

Israel has long been needed and the only excuse for not making it is to prepare for a

still more effective response at a later time. If that is not in the offing, which only Israel's

government knows, then things are dark since the Arabs will not abandon their

onslaughts that have Israel's destruction on as their goals.

Sarah Honig said it better than I almost 10 years ago when her advice would have even

been more effective if considered, just as Jabotinsky's warnings in 1939 would have been

effective had the doomed Polish Jews listened.

Here, with apologies for not asking, is Sarah:

JP - Aug. 28, 2003

Ze'ev Jabotinsky on self-delusion, By Sarah Honig

In a few days, on September 1, some of us will note that exactly 64

years ago World War II began, ushering in the worst catastrophe ever

for the already long-suffering Jewish people. Besides literally

shattering millions of Jewish lives, that war brutally shattered often

complacent conceptions of the mainstream and left-of-center Jewish

establishment, which vituperatively rejected Revisionist leader Ze'ev

Jabotinsky's relentless warnings, sounded with ever-increasing passion

and urgency.

Less than four months before the blitzkrieg, Jabotinsky addressed a

Warsaw audience and answered his numerous detractors' accusations that

he was cruelly robbing Jews of hope. He contended that:

"...sometimes bold, fervent desperation can constitute a legitimate

response. Worse than that is what I see among Eastern Europe's Jewish

masses - equanimity, fatalism. People behave as if they've been

condemned and sentenced. I know of nothing like this in history, and

haven't encountered such surrender to destiny in novels.

"What's this like? It's like shoving 12 million educated, experienced

people into a wagon that is hurtling toward an abyss. And how do these

folks behave? One cries, one smokes cigarettes, some read newspapers,

another sings. Don't bother looking for one person to take over the

controls and reroute the wagon. That's the mind-set. It's as if a

great enemy came and chloroformed everyone's brains.

"I come to you in one last attempt and call upon you: Put a stop to

this.

"Try to halt this wagon. Try to jump off. Place obstacles in its

course. Don't go like sheep to the wolf. In nature, when the wolf

devours one sheep and then another, the remainder at least quake and

take fright and flight. Yet here - it's just one huge graveyard."

If a Zionist bible is ever written, then Jabotinsky surely must be

counted as its greatest compassionate-yet-wrathful prophet. His

doomsday-eve admonition should be memorized by every Israeli

schoolchild. Unfortunately it's as meaningful today as it was then.

Granted, we have a state of our own and are supposedly independent.

When he was 16, Jabotinsky summed up the essence of Zionism as "Jews

again taking charge of their own history, whereas in the Diaspora

others make history in our stead."

Were he to see us today he'd doubtlessly be sickened by the way we

conduct our affairs. He might again resort to the imagery of sheep

going to the wolf.

OUR REPEATED deals with carnivorous terrorists who would devour us and

our compulsive recidivist attempts to appease them indicate that we're

serially addicted to mind-numbing chloroform.

For a decade we've been stoned on the Oslo hallucinogen. Successive

Israeli governments lacked the fortitude to quit the self-destructive

habit. Despite a three-year terror onslaught, our government continues

to manufacture artificial peace partners, upon whom the nation's

collective hope is subsequently pinned.

It's comforting to portray Palestinian Authority honchos as reasonable

interlocutors, even though deep down we know they are implacable foes

who'd like nothing better than to rid the region of us all. It's

disheartening to admit that Palestinian terror is a strategic threat,

and that it's us or them. It's hard to own up that sporadic targeted

killings can't replace a sustainable, systematic campaign against the

PA itself. Self-deception is sweeter.

Hence we seek encouraging signs of moderation and cooperation from the

PA (like temporarily declining body-counts). We're easily swayed, even

after particularly hideous dream-crushing atrocities, which we strive

to put out of mind quickly and rekindle, yet again, the indomitable

hope for coexistence.

No wonder we've been consistently outmaneuvered, especially since

Oslo's advent, when our leaders signaled that nothing's sacred, that a

homeland is negotiable real-estate, that we can't win, that a second

Palestinian Arab state (after Jordan) is tolerable, that Jerusalem is

divisible and the Temple Mount forfeitable.

Ehud Barak's administration even contemplated sacrificing some

within-the-Green-Line territory (at Halutza) or "repatriating" limited

numbers of Arab "refugees."

Arabs aren't dumb. They perceive our erased "red lines" and conclude

that Jews want the good life and are willing to gamble anything for

peace and prosperity. They hear Israel's premier obsequiously resort

to their "occupation" terminology while leading his nation,

blood-stained and tattered road map in hand, to accepting Palestinian

statehood.

Arabs realize this state is nothing short of a reward for slaughtering

Jews.

They see how the world's terror-combating single superpower frequently

holds Israel back, and reckon that the American president's falling

approval ratings will inevitably mean heavier pressure on Israel to

provide him with an ostensible achievement. It's simpler for him to

squeeze terror's victim than to eliminate terror.

Wishful thinking and political correctness render Israelis so pliable

they dare not disobey Washington's dictates for long. They can hardly

be relied upon to recognize and repel even existential threats.

WHY IN the world, then, would Palestinians clean up their act? Terror

patently works. Without it, no one would countenance awarding them a

state. Why should they destroy a winning proposition?

From the Palestinian perspective, logic decrees that the terror option

remain viable. It yields results and potentially restrains Israel - as

Hizbullah does on the Lebanese border.

All the while, the world and Israel's Left impose the moral onus on

gullible Jews to continue retreating and naively pay tribute. Given

this state of affairs, we've no business expecting a cessation of

terror, much less peace from the Palestinians.

The glaring difference between Arabs and Jews is that Arabs are

renowned for their patience while Jews want peace now. That to them is

synonymous with hope. Today, as in 1939, they balk when prophets of

doom and gloom, like Jabotinsky a historical millisecond ago, insist

on pulling the wool from over their eyes.

Peace Now's eternal optimists always demand to know the alternative.

Perhaps the answer is no different from the one Jabotinsky gave.

Sometimes desperation is preferable to spurious hope. Resolute

determination in the face of unpleasant reality is certainly healthier

than persistent self-delusion.

It's better for sheep to comprehend that none other than the big bad

wolf lies in wait at the end of the road map's charted path. But sheep

who learned nothing from the bitter fate of their kin in Warsaw, nor

from the more recent Oslo lesson, and who covet wolfish assurances,

are bound to get bloodied again.