Ronald Reagan: A Time for Choosing ~ October 27, 1964
When Joram saw Jehu he asked, "Have you come in peace, Jehu?"
"How can there be peace," Jehu replied,
"as long as all the idolatry and whoredoms of your mother Jezebel abound?"
~ 2 Kings 9:22
They ain't making Presidents like Ronnie anymore.
Voo Jah Day. This written in 1999:
Making Israel Bleed
[SNIP]
Henry Kissinger comes to mind as a premier practitioner of this political tactic. In October 1973, he wouldn't let Israel strike Egypt or Syria pre-emptively even though their intentions to annihilate Israel were well-declared. And Kissinger refused to re-supply Israel until forced to on the eighth day of a vicious all-out attack against Israel on Yom Kippur by the armies of three countries - plus a few brigades from some other countries.
(Actually it was Nixon who overrode Kissinger at Golda's request, she called him in the dead of night and begged, Nixon recalled his Quaker mothers Bible teachings on Israel and gave her everything she needed - bz)
Later when Israel appeared to be winning, Kissinger interrupted with a cease-fire, which Israel followed but the Arabs did not. In all of the defensive wars that Israel fought, once they appeared to be winning the Russians, American Arabists and the UN demanded that Israel stop its counter attacks. And leave us not forget the hostile anti-Israel behavior by other Secretaries of State, notably, Rogers, Brezhinsky, Baker, and Defense Secretary Weinberger.
[SNIP]
The Government of Israel is busy: suggesting negotiations over Shebaa Farms with Beirut's new Hezbollah-dominated government; using a German mediator to release to Hezbollah a terrorist who killed an Israeli child by smashing her head with a rifle butt; using a Turkish mediator to offer Syria the Golan Heights; and using Egypt to establish a cease-fire with Hamas that allows the terrorist group to hang on to Gilad Shalit and reasonably claim a victory for violent revolution.
This diplomatic push appears to be an effort to buy a period of calm, rather than a belief that Israel will realize its strategic goals from the negotiations or the concessions. This leads to two questions: what are Israel's strategic goals, and of what benefit is a defined period of limited calm (other than that it beats living under fire day-to-day)?
Israel's strategic goals have has been political legitimacy and, "Termination of all claims or states of belligerency... [and the] right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force" - the promises of UN Resolution 242. The corollaries are that Israel cannot fight a war of attrition against larger and less politically sensitive hostile forces, and wars have to be fought on enemy territory.
A period of calm, purchased by ceding to the enemy what it currently demands while knowing that later demands are likely is known as appeasement. Although inextricably tied to Munich, Hitler and Chamberlain's umbrella, appeasement is not always wrong. Carefully calculated, it might be useful if a country isn't ready to fight now, but will be later. Serious students of WWII acknowledge that Britain was in no position to go to war in 1938, having failed to squash Hitler in 1936 when it would have been easier. Hitler had used the interregnum to his advantage and Britain had to catch up.
If Israel decides it is not now in a position to fight Hezbollah or Hamas, keeping them quiet may work, as long as the government correctly calculates the enemy's increased ability and readiness to fight next time and uses the time wisely itself. Certainly Hamas and Hezbollah will be using it to their advantage. Or, if Israel has decided that Iran requires a concentrated effort, throwing bones to the local warlords may provide the requisite time and space to tackle the most pressing strategic problem.
This assumes, of course, that the Government of Israel has made a calculated choice for calculated gain and isn't swallowing its own peace propaganda.
On the other hand, there appears to be no rational calculation for Secretary Rice's current obsession with giving away bits of Israel to its enemies. The housing freeze she seeks on the West Bank and in Israel's capital seem primarily designed to ensure that if the Palestinians ever agree to take the state they have been rejecting since 1947, there won't be too many Jews there.
Appeasement, in that case, is tantamount to surrender.
SEE ALSO: The arrangement for a lull in the fighting
This at DBKP by Spleen reader "pat" :
Employers Struggle to Accommodate Muslim Workers
Sudden Muslim Grievance Syndrome
Bob Dylan: It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) 1965
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.
Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.
So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.
An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.
Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.
While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.
Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.
So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.
An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.
Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.
While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.
Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
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