Ronald Reagan came to office with a strategy to defeat communism. It was such a radical idea that many career diplomats and politicos thought it would never work. For the longest time, the idea was to contain communism through appeasement and negotiation. Reagan came to the White House with the idea that the goal should be victory, not the maintenance of the status quo. Reagan wanted to win the Cold War.The concept of “peace through strength” is not just a theory with military applications, it also has diplomatic implications. The very definition of “peace” has been altered to mean the absence of violence instead of the resolution of disputes. It is this very distortion that allows Israel to pull out of occupied territory from which terrorists had been launching attacks and the terrorists get the Nobel Peace Prize (see Arafat, Yassir).
There are all these calls for an immediate cease fire, but stopping this violence without resolving the dispute is not the answer. The President of Iran is claiming that the solution to the Middle East crisis is the destruction of Israel. How does appeasing this crackpot make the world any safer? Answer: It doesn’t. Chamberlain’s appeasing of Hitler failed to prevent World War II and giving in to the calls for peace without resolution merely prolongs the conflict and endangers more lives. We can’t continue to give terrorists and their masters the gifts of time and legitimacy.
The border fence is all about containment; but as we can see by watching the news, a fence can only do so much.
Diplomacy has had its chance to work. Diplomacy has failed. Israel has tried appeasement before and learned the lesson that it doesn’t work. Appeasement has failed. Israel has tried containment with the border fence. Containment has failed.
That leaves engagement.
Israel has tried everything else…
