Events of the last few weeks give new credence to the old saying that "history repeats itself." On Sept. 30, 1938, two groups of statesmen convened in the city of Munich, Germany to negotiate a treaty. On one side stood French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier and his British colleague, Neville Chamberlain. Opposite them stood Nazi Germany's Adolf Hitler and Italy's Benito Mussolini. The first of the two delegations arrived confused and largely impotent. Perceiving concession and appeasement to German demands as the only means to avoid a European conflagration, Chamberlain and Daladier sought to avoid what was already in motion. Hitler remarked after the signing, "Chamberlain seemed such a nice old gentleman that I thought I would give him my autograph." In Munich, Chamberlain, the nice old gentlemen, certainly acted like one. A jubilant reception awaited the Prime Minister in London as he proclaimed "peace in our time." It all disintegrated a year later, and when it was all over, 40 million had perished. It's important to heed the lessons of the past in light of a cataclysm that now approaches Israel, the United States and the West.
We begin with the Jewish state and its predicament. Israel faces a myriad of problems: fierce internal division, an oppositional international community and neighbors bent on its obliteration. Recent events have greatly exacerbated these challenges. Hamas, an Islamist terrorist group whose 1988 Covenant states, "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it," has won 78 of 130 seats in the Palestinian Parliamentary elections. Ehud Olmert, Israel's acting Prime Minister, having sent 6,000 troops to expel the nine pioneering families of Amona (north of Jerusalem) and their supporters, has announced that Hamas is "not a strategic threat" and plans to launch massive withdrawals from the West Bank if victorious in the March Knesset elections. A recent poll taken by Israel Army Radio and the Jerusalem Post showed close to 70 percent of the Israeli public now believes last year's Gaza disengagement was "useless" and 50 percent oppose further withdrawals from the West Bank.
The Israeli government has been touting its security barrier for months as the panacea that will solve its security problems. This is flawed logic. It is true that in the fortified areas 90 percent of terrorist attacks were thwarted, but that didn't prevent over 320 Kassam rockets being launched at the city of Sderot. It also completely ignores the fact that the Palestinian terrorists have obtained 13-16 kilometer range Russian rockets and will receive substantial support from Iran. As history shows, a wall cannot save a people from those bent on its annihilation - even the Great Wall of China didn't work. Israel must act offensively against Hamas, stop its policy of retreat from Judea and Samaria, fundamentally restructure the Knesset political landscape and encourage the construction of new Jewish communities in the territories. The alternative is a repeat of 1938 and another Holocaust.
We now turn to the second challenge: the policies and intentions of the Iranian regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah Khameini. The International Atomic Energy Agency, citing Iran for multiple infractions and non-compliance of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, has sent its file to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions in March. The Iranian regime's response was as troubling as it was direct. Iran threatened to halve domestic oil production, withdrew assets from European banks and pushed on with full uranium enrichment, as IAEA seals on sensitive facilities were removed. Iran has systematically deceived the international community about its nuclear program for 18 years and has become the premier sponsor of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East. Ahmadinejad has called Israel a "tumor" and has denied the Holocaust multiple times. He also proclaimed a world "without America and Zionism is reasonable and possible." Israeli intelligence estimates Iran achieving nuclear capability in 10 to 18 months, with US predictions being three to five years.
To give such a regime the benefit of the doubt as our predecessors did in 1938 is to sign one's own death warrant. I am pessimistic about sanctions being the only course of action, especially if Russia and China veto or choose to circumvent them. A full naval em-bargo on gasoline and machine parts may prove effective, but the regime will likely still find willing customers to supply them, as did Saddam Hussein in the case of France and China. Military action might eventually be the only alternative. If such action is to be taken, it must be done with the full force of the Western bloc and no recourse must be spared. The coming months give the West an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past and act decisively in response to both Iranian and Palestinian threats. The West must not forget the lessons of Munich and allow Iran to reach a point of no return, because it will be us who won't be returning.
Boris Ryvkin '09 tells it like it is.
