Not too many things in this world piss me off worse than appeasement. Appeasement is the willful act of giving up on your wants, needs, and own best interests to try to please the other party in the naive belief that once you have given enough, the other party will be satisfied enough to treat you better or meet you halfway. Appeasement, also, never works, and nowhere do we see the failure of appeasement more than when it is applied in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The demands for appeasement mostly come from the Left, which has a tendency to blame Israel for everything while framing the Palestinians as the constant victims. In framing the Palestinians as constant victims this sets up a very unproductive dynamic in which Israel is always wrong and the Palestinians are always right, which becomes harder to explain when you see the leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority absconding funds, cancelling elections, appointing leadership without the say of the people, and focusing their resources on destroying Israel rather than building industry and infrastructure for their own people.
Time after time, the Left demands that Israel appease the Palestinians by giving up land, safety, funds, and more. Israel gives in and appeases only to be told that they haven't done enough, and this is usually followed by more demands for appeasement.
The Left's obsession with Palestinian sovereignty is perplexing, because it flies in the face of everything the Left supposedly stands for. Under a sovereign Palestinian government, homosexuality would be outlawed and punishable by death, other religions would be illegal, women and minorities would be second class citizens, and the West would likely be targeted as enemies.
Israel, on the other hand, is the embodiment of Leftist ideals with universal healthcare and education. Women are full and equal participants, minorities are given equal status, other religions are accepted and welcome, and the only gay pride parade happening in the Middle East is in Tel Aviv. Yet the Left can never be appeased enough.
Lest I focus my ire squarely on the appeasement demanded by the Left, there is a much quieter, sinister appeasement that is happening right now on the Right. Lately, the Right has taken the reigns as the champions of Israel. Jews all over the U.S. are flocking to vote for Right Wing candidates who, publicly, can't proclaim their love of Israel enough. In voting for candidates on the Right, American Jews are engaging in a far more dangerous appeasement.
Aside from their proclamation of fiscal responsibility, which hasn't really been seen since prior to the Reagan era, the platform of the Right does not align with Jewish values. They are not accepting of homosexuals, minorities, and women, they don't believe in providing healthcare, social security or a basic safety net, they are not champions of education, and are all about rewarding a vulture capitalist system that destroys communities and leaves the majority in the dust. These are not Jewish values, yet time and time again, we watch leaders in the Jewish community embrace the Right in hopes that the U.S. will continue to support Israel.
This kowtowing appeasement has been particularly disgusting given who is in power and the actions of the new Trump Administration. Steve Bannon gave the new Neo Nazi movement, revamped with the shiny, new name, Alt-Right, a strong presence on the internet. He has also promoted fake news, and his political tactics seem to be borrowed straight from the Goebbels handbook. The sweeping, and unAmerican travel ban, hit many people in the gut, especially Jews, because during WWII, we were the ones turned away from the safety offered in the U.S. Of course those on the Right will rush in and say that the Administration is very Jew-friendly, because Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller are in top positions, but never forget there were many Jews in Germany during the late 1930s who believed their status and money would keep them safe. They worked with Nazis believing that if they appeased the Nazi radicals, they would be spared. Again, appeasement led to death.
The truth is that the Christian Evangelicals on the Right; the ones who are quick to point out the sin in others, but managed to look past the sinful life of Donald Trump, in order to seize power, are no friends to Israel. In order for their messiah to come, all Jews have to return to Israel to die, so is this really a group we want to appease?
Negotiations with clear and objective goals, willful compromising on both sides, a mutual understanding of common interests, the elimination of extremists on all sides, all of those things are reasonable and should be the foundation for establishing peace and ending the conflict, but appeasement should be avoided at all costs, because, in the end, no one ever wins the appeasement game.
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