No more appeasement

Submitted by Daphne Burdman (Israel), Jul 18, 2006 at 16:05

Thank you, Daniel Pipes, for expressing the enormous frustration which some of us, here in Israel have felt at the lamentable government policies which have led to this war. Only if the Olmert government stands by his recently affirmed resolution to destroy Hizbullah, now before any further repeats of this tragedy occur, will we have salvaged the situation. Further time wasted with a U.N. "stabilization force" as suggested by Koffi Annan, permitting Hizbullah a respite in which to become even more powerful will be a tragic and maybe terminal error for Israel.

As a behavioral psychologist I refer to the basic tenet that a successful deed will stimulate further behaviors which created that success. In other words, actions such as terrorism which lead to appeasement will stimulate further such actions, exactly as we have been witnessing in recent years in the Palestinian arena. With Islamist fascism we are dealing with an authoritarian polarized mindset which may only recognize failure when forced to unconditionally surrender.

Attempts to aid the Palestinians to constructive self-help are constantly advocated by the "politically correct", apparently humanitarian but actually deluded "peace" camp, and we see how this has failed and to what point this has brought us. Unfortunately many from the "peace" camp cannot conceive that cultural differences are immense in this conflict and that humane treatment and humanitarian help are considered as signs of weakness by militant Islamists only encouraging them to exacerbate the conflict. Negotiations and conflict resolution have proven to be a complete failure, but there still remain only too many very powerful advocates at the U.N. and E.U. who fail to be convinced.

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