Jewish Pacifism May

Prove Israel's Demise

Irving Kett

If we go back in history, it is evident that nations that become infected with pacifism are destined to destruction. A classic example took place in the latter days of the Roman Empire. With the barbarians at their gates in the 5th century, public pressure induced the Roman Senate to pass a law eliminating conscription. The end result was not peace but the subjugation of that ancient civilization.

What is referred to in this article as pacifism is the entire range of propaganda mechanisms used in the political and military struggle between nations to undermine the enemy's will to resist. Aggressive, dictatorial forces have effectively exploited pacifist movements against democratic societies. The pacifist, who can only exist in a democratic environment, is a parasite in his own society, depending upon more altruistic individuals to defend his person and freedom from the ever-present external predators.

Probably one of the most counterproductive developments in the post World War I era was the rise of classical pacifism in the democratic countries of Western Europe and the United States. In the 1920s, a group of Oxford University students took what came to be known as the Oxford Pledge never to bear arms. Soon after Hitler came to power, they overwhelmingly voted, "That this House refuses in any circumstances to fight for King and Country." There was at that time a general tendency to dismiss Hitler's most ferocious statements as rhetoric intended merely for home consumption. Note the similarity with those who choose to ignore the constant, vicious incitement against Israel and Jews in the entire Arab world.

Those intellectuals who took the Oxford Pledge obviously did not serve the cause of peace. They only helped the cause of Nazi Germany and the other dictators. When a history of the late 20th century is written, Israel will serve as a prime example of a targeted nation, whose enemy was aided and abetted by a pernicious fifth column of self-hating intellectuals. The pacifism of those English intellectuals in the 1920s and 1930s led George Orwell to declare that "some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals could believe them."

In the early years of World War II, Hitler and his ally Joseph Stalin used widespread anti-war agitation to undermine the will of the democracies to resist Nazi aggression. In the United States, both ends of the political spectrum, the left and the right, joined forces to try and prevent U.S. preparation for war, all in the name of peace. Even as late as May 1940, when German armies had

already outmaneuvered the Maginot Line, the slogan of French pacifists was "Peace, Immediate Peace." They exhorted the French not to resist the German advance into their country. The end result was the collapse of the supposedly mighty French Army in June 1940, after a mere six weeks of mid-intensity combat. The dictators who ruled Nazi Germany and Communist Russia skillfully used their "useful idiots" (to quote Lenin's description of Western Marxists) for their propaganda purposes but never allowed such shenanigans to undermine their own forces.

A parallel situation exists with regard to Israel and her Arab adversaries. How many "Peace Now" organizations and people are there in the Arab world? For more than 75 years, Arabs who publicly voiced a desire for accomodation toward the Jews were assassinated forthwith. Today, any Arab suspected of selling land to Jews is brutally murdered. The entire struggle in the Middle East between Jews and Arabs lacks any semblance of symmetry. A policy of confronting an Arab enemy with the slogan of "Peace Now" is in reality proposing 'Surrender Now" with all its horrible consequences for Jewish survival.

Winston Churchill was once asked by President Franklin D. Roosevelt what name he would suggest for the war then being fought. Churchill, without hesitation replied, "the Unnecessary War." In Churchill's book, "Memoirs of the Second World War," he illustrates how easily the tragedy of World War II could have been avoided. He wrote as follows: "[H]ow the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous...We shall see how the counsels of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of mortal danger; how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life may be found to lead to the bull's-eye of disaster." What a terrifying resemblance to the counsels of appeasement urged on Israel today.

In the spring of 1979, I was sent to Israel as a Colonel in the U.S. Army to help construct two high-performance air bases in the Negev for the Israel Defense Forces. Early in that three-year tour of duty, I was introduced to, and developed a strong friendship with, a superb human being, Chaim Laskov. He was the sixth Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces. During World War II, he served in the British Army and rose to the rank of major, which was quite an accomplishment for a Jew from Palestine. In commenting on Israel's security dilemma, General Laskov would always end with the same comment: "israel has nothing to fear from the Arabs, as long as the Jews of Israel are totally and absolutely dedicated to their own defense and are willing to fight for it and to die for it without question, so that the Jewish nation may live."

That has been the secret of Israel's ability to survive to date. However, in response to 30 years of propagandistic onslaught by a Post-Zionist, Post-Judaist intellectual elite and media, that necessary patriotism and national commitment has been eroded in a significant part of the Jewish population by a demoralizing pacifism that can only lead to the destruction of Israel.

Irving Kett is a retired U.S. Army Colonel.