The moment Samir Kuntar walked into Lebanon as a free man spelt the end of a hard earned 60 years cultivating the image of Israel as a capable, tough and proud state. Samir Kuntar is one of the most despised villains of Israeli society: a vicious murderer, his crimes included the inhuman beating to death of a three year old Israeli girl in front of horrified witnesses. In the eyes of the Arab countries and even among Western Arab communities, Samir Kuntar is the darling of the defenders of Islam – a brave resistance fighter.

My horror at the release of this epitome of evil is not the support for his crimes that is propagated among the Arabs; it is not even shock at the (frankly expected) Western indifference for this monster – instead I am appalled by the virus that goes by the name of appeasement that has risen again to infect the integrity or lack thereof, manifested by the weak politicians and the morally bankrupt Left of the “liberal” West.

One particular historical parallel that can now be applied to the Arab-Israeli conflict by supporters of Israel is the disastrous policy of appeasement practised noticeably by one of its true founders: Neville Chamberlain. Once the understanding of the West and even the byline of slightly cringe-worthy Hollywood films was ‘Never negotiate with terrorism’. Now appeasement and negotiation appears to govern international politics: from the hundreds of incentives made to the Iran by the EU, hoping to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons research, each new offer giving more and more away to the Iranians; to the ‘quiet diplomacy’ pursued by Thabo Mbeki with Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

The release of Samir Kuntar, four other terrorists and the hundreds of remains of dead Lebanese murderers marks the beginning of the end. Israel, more than any country, should realise that appeasement is a policy that will never work to their advantage. It betrays the teachings of Machiavelli: “…one should never permit a disorder to persist in order to avoid a war, for war is not avoided thereby but merely deferred to one’s own disadvantage.” And it sends chilling reminders of Chamberlain’s efforts to secure peace; or the IRA murderers given their ill-gotten freedom by Blair’s government; the US government’s protection of Arafat in 1982; the attempted appeasement of Saddam Hussein before the 1990 Gulf War; the encouraged promotion of Islamic culture above all others in Western countries by Western governments; the suggestions of British judges for allowing some form of sharia law in Britain – the last hundred years have shown a frightening propensity for the West to fail to learn from its mistakes and to allow the forces of evil a chance to exist and prosper.

So why is Olmert’s government meeting Hezbollah’s demands? Why is it appeasing its enemies? Israel has owed 60 years of remarkable existence to ‘disproportionate’ response and a tough and no-nonsense attitude towards its enemies. Many would argue this is a key reason for her survival. The release of the five terrorists by Israel met one of Hezbollah’s few demands, another being the return of the Sheba farms to Lebanon. Is it that these unforgettable years of terrorism, torture, murder, cruelty unimaginable to civilized society have all just been for the return of a few hundred yards of farm and a child murderer? – the truth of course, is that Hezbollah, like the rest of the Arab world, seeks the destruction of Israel and its people. Olmert seems to have forgotten this. They have reversed the direction of sixty years of policies based on reality and common sense, and are taking an ill-fated chance with the future of their country.

For the despairing results of this cruel act of appeasement we have not even had to wait a few days. Immediately Hamas decided it was no longer going to agree to Israeli terms for the return of Gilad Shalit and was to demand greater returns for the terrorist group. Furthermore, a group of British MPs called for a dialogue with Palestinian terror groups, Hamas included; breaking the policy of no recognition that most Western countries have pursued.

But this author is not completely a pessimist and his writings shall not just be a harbinger of Israel’s complete failure – there is still a chance: Olmert and his coalition must be removed, a strong leader (preferably Netanyahu) must be elected, Kuntar must be assassinated, Hamas must be destroyed, Hezbollah must be removed, Iran’s nuke and missile sites must be obliterated and the supply of armaments to the Gaza Strip and West Bank must be stopped. Tough orders? These are problems all created by appeasement; it is war deferred to Israel’s disadvantage, and now Israel is forced to deal with it.

 Melanie Phillips writes that appeasement, far from preventing war from happening, actually causes it.  

The Iranian regime should be under the maximum economic diplomatic and military pressure, treated as a pariah state and kept guessing about the possibility of a US attack, all in order to weaken and destabilise it. Instead this latest act of craven American appeasement will strengthen it because it displays in flashing neon lights the message that America hasn’t got a clue what to do about Iran and so could Tehran kindly help it out of this jam, please. Far from avoiding war, this only makes it more likely – and more likely also that when that terrible eventuality occurs, Iran will be on the front foot.

History teaches us, after all, that war is the inevitable outcome of appeasement because, instead of preventing bad people from doing bad things, it galvanises them further to do so. When the Americans talked to the Japanese, the result was Pearl Harbour. When Chamberlain talked to Hitler, the result was the invasion of Poland. And when Britain tried to appease the Arab Nazis in 1930s Palestine by offering to reward them for their terrorist intransigence by giving them half the land promised to the Jews, the result was the Arab war of annihilation against the reborn Jewish state – a war which continues to this day.

Moreover, Iran is as strong as it is today only because of the astounding fact that America has refused to fight back in the war that Iran has been prosecuting against it now for almost three decades. When its people were taken hostage at the US embassy, Jimmy Carter infamously sat on his hands. When more than 240 Americans were murdered when Iran bombed the US marine barracks, the US did virtually nothing. When Iran fomented attacks in Iraq and blew up coalition troops by its roadside bombs, America gave orders to its military that there were to be no covert ops in Iran and not even any hot pursuit of Iranian terrorists over the border. And when Iran turned Lebanon into a proxy battleground and stifled the nascent Lebanese democracy, America looked the other way. So much for the ‘Bush doctrine’.

It is however quite staggering to witness this change in attitude towards Israel by a man who had been arguably the most pro-Israel American president in history. Yet now he is giving the impression that – in the prescient cry of Ariel Sharon – Israel is to play the role of Czechoslovakia in 1938, with William Burns about to join the EU in sealing its fate in a re-run of the Munich agreement. This in turn follows the intense American pressure upon Israel to reach a suicidal deal with Fatah to establish what would inevitably be a Palestinian terror state. But of course, entirely contrary to the false belief that America has its strings pulled by the Zionists, more often than not American presidents have by their actions shown they are no friend at all to Israel. Clinton, that quintessential false friend, was a key player in the Oslo peace process which armed Fatah and resulted in thousands of Israelis dead in the second intifada and the strengthening of the jihad everywhere. Over the years America has constantly forced Israel to make ‘painful concessions’ which have imperilled its security, while refusing to compel the Arabs to make any concessions at all and insisting on rewarding them instead for their aggression. It is that systematic accommodation with genocidal terror and the sacrifice of truth and justice on the altar of appeasement which is the single most important reason for the never-ending Middle East impasse – and why the whole of the free world is now about to be held to ransom.

Read here a discussion about the folly and danger of not naming the enemy who is waging war against us. 

Read here how a man who devotes his life to terrorism and every kind of cruel violence, a promoter of murder and torture, is to be sheltered, supported, and guarded at public expense in Britain, in the name of human rights.