The More Things Change

In a speech marking the 65th anniversary of Kristallnacht, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder has called on the people of Germany to resist the resurgence of racism and anti-Semitism.

On the night of November 9th, 1938, Nazi gangs in various German towns and cities plundered and set light to Jewish shops and synagogues. With so much broken glass, this 'crystal night' marked the start of the official persecution of the Jews in Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.

Chancellor Schroder described it as a day when civilisation and decency made way for lawlessness and hate. (Radio Netherlands via Free Republic)

Sometimes, I sit and wonder if we're facing a redo of the 1930s. Anti-Semitism is on the rise. The world economy is still struggling. Demagogues seem to rule the day more than rational thinkers. Appeasement is in; intervention is considered by the elite to be gauche. We've, to a large extent, reduced our military capability below a threshold of reasonableness. The threats are on the horizon, just this time their names are Bin Laden, Jong Il, and Khomeni instead of Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini.

To me, the most troubling sign is the rise in anti-Semitism, again. The Malaysian Prime Minister can make blatant anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist quality comments and he gets a shrug from many. Europeans can vote Israel as the greatest threat to world peace. Bin Laden, Arafat and their cronies can call for the extermination of Israel and all the Jews. And no one really seems to give it too much concern.

Large segments of the world are heading back into the habit of scapegoating the Jews for every little thing that goes wrong. The world holds Israel to a different standard. We expect them to surrender the territories like the Sudetenland. We expect them to show restraint in the face of direct violent attacks, like the residents of the Nazi ghettos. It's almost as if we would accept their elimination in the name of "world peace."

But Bin Laden and his ilk really are no different from the tyrants of the '30s. Just as Nazis simply had they appetites whet by the sacrifice of the Sudetenland, the Islamists would only be emboldened by an Israeli sacrifice of the West Bank and Gaza. Jerusalem would be the next target (look at what happened when the Israelis offered Arafat everything he asked for - he backed up and demanded all of Jerusalem also). Their lebensraum wouldn't be Europe. It wouldn't be the Middle East. Hitler at least pretended to hide his aspirations of world domination. The Islamists make it no secret at all.

We've been down this road once before and we made the mistake of appeasement. The terrorists in charge today cannot and should not be appeased. They need to be pressured, to be put on the defensive, to be taken out of power.

Otherwise, they may make WWII and the Holocaust look like an opening act.