In the same way that the public mind avoids the main threat of the nuclear crisis, it is also
unwilling to see the striking parallels between current processes and what happened in the
1920s and 1930s.
Surging fascist sentiments in many countries prompted European governments at that time to
adopt a policy of appeasement towards Nazism in Germany and fascism in Italy. Many people in
the West are now deluding themselves with the possibility of appeasing militant Islamic
fundamentalism in the naïve hope that it can be moderated, bribed and civilized through
concessions and indulgences.
At that time belated doubts about the fairness of the Treaty of Versailles prompted Europe and
the Soviet Union to turn a blind eye to Germany’s full-scale war preparations. Now the admission
that it was a mistake for the US and its allies to invade Iraq serves to justify inordinate tolerance
of xenophobic statements by Iran and other Islamic regimes, of their open threats to destroy
Israel and of their defiant apologia of the genocide of the Jews between 1933 and 1945.
Inflating their complex of guilt towards Islamic nations, subjected in their time to European
colonial rule, some influential non-governmental organizations (NGOs), mass media and
The world we live in is going
through more than one crisis
simultaneously.
Crisis of values >
The demographic crisis >
The demographic crisis >
International terrorism >
The environmental crisis >
politicians, especially those in the European Union, have been cultivating tolerance of Islamic
radicalism and even justifying terrorist attacks of Islamic extremists against peaceful citizens of
Russia and Israel. Far from appeasing extremists, such elevation of terrorists to the rank of
“freedom fighters” will merely kindle their aggressive aspirations.
In the 1930s Western countries and the Soviet Union tried to channel fascist aggression against
each other. Now the US, Europe, Russia, China and India are making advances to some radical
Islamic regimes and organizations due to geopolitical, economic and military competition
between each other, and in the hope that militant Islamism will assault their rivals rather than
themselves.
Human conscience, which was stirred up by the twentieth-century Holocaust, seems to have
fallen asleep in this century. Israel has managed to defend its right to exist in five wars over the
past sixty years. Now Europeans and, increasingly, Americans have of late thought that they
need not worry about that any more and that the main thing is to reach consensus with the
Islamic world whatever the cost. As one generation gives way to another, the memory of the
horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald fades away. Moralizing demagogy and manifestations of
Western solidarity with radicalism in the Middle East are becoming all the more popular since
they, as a rule, cloak fairly material “hydrocarbon” interests.
Making use of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Nazi regime recruited allies and satellites,
while Nazi ideology prepared a justification for the blitzkrieg, world war and Holocaust. Now the
leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, constantly urging the destruction of the Big Satan (the
US) and the Little Satan (Israel), are preparing to justify ideologically any provocation and
terrorist acts that the terrorist networks, led and financed by Tehran, are capable of staging.
With the connivance of the governments of Islamic states that are regarded as Western allies,
there have appeared dangerous seats of international terrorism in the north-western provinces
of Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons, in northern Yemen, and in some countries of the Sahara
region and South East Asia. The Taliban, who are controlling most of Afghanistan and escalating
their strikes against the UN military contingent and humanitarian aid organizations, continue, as
before, to challenge the entire world community.
In the 1930s US, British, French and Soviet concessions to Germany entailed a chain of
diplomatic defeats and nurtured Hitler’s impunity and increasingly arrogant policy. The situation
is now repeating itself. The UN World Conference against Racism held in Durban (South Africa) in
2001 in fact turned racist, as it focused practically exclusively on Israel: it passed a resolution
equating Zionism to racism and called Israel an “apartheid state”. That conference served as an
ideological platform for the Al-Aqsa Intifada. The appeasement policy might have suffered
another defeat when the 2009 UN conference in Geneva stopped short of becoming another anti-
Israeli forum thanks only to international solidarity efforts. Guided by obviously ideological
motives, the NPT Review Conference of 2010 has selectively focused on criticizing Israel alone of
all the countries either violating the treaty or not party to it.
What next? What are the limits of tolerance in interstate relations? How much longer are UN and
UN-sponsored conferences, called with the noble aim of combating racism, xenophobia, national
and religious enmity, as well as the spread of mass annihilation weapons, to serve as detonators
setting off mutual hatred and encouraging irresponsible actions by extremists? What is to
counter the spread of xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism in the world in addition to UN
commission activities that increasingly look like attempts to put out fire with gasoline?
The less pressure that is brought to bear on conservative regimes in Islamic countries regarded
as Western allies, the more confident all sorts of extremist groupings and political and financial
circles maintaining radicals feel in their bid to use the latter as a political instrument for
pressuring the West and Russia. The longer fruitless negotiations continue with Tehran on its
nuclear programme, the closer Iran comes to developing nuclear weapons. These negotiations
have of late been focused not on the demand that the five resolutions of the UN Security Council
be implemented and uranium enrichment stopped, but on talking Iran into accepting the
proposals of other nations that Iran enrich its uranium to a higher degree.
Under the guise of similar negotiations hundreds of European companies are engaged in financial
and business operations with Iran, making economic sanctions of the UN Security Council
absolutely senseless. Some states are trying to ease these sanctions in order not to “turn” Iran
away from the negotiation process, while simultaneously claiming sanctions to be inefficient.
They thus send the UN Security Council policy around a vicious circle and provide Tehran with a
lever to escalate its nuclear course. The USA and some European countries have as a result
introduced tougher unilateral sanctions, which sap the unity of the permanent UN Security
Council members.
This policy of “economic pragmatism” and the desire not to miss their opportunity for short-term
profit prompted the Soviet Union, Britain, France and the US to compete with each other in
cooperating with the booming economy of Nazi Germany seventy years ago. However, what
seemed to be a policy of realism and sound pragmatism proved to be the main mistake of the
twentieth century, and entailed unheard-of dramatic consequences in world history. In 2010 the
world marked the sixty-fifth anniversary of victory in that most horrible war. But that war could
have been averted! Yet, by making advances to radical Islamist forces, the world seems to be
ready to repeat that fatal mistake again.
In his time Hitler fostered Nazi fifth columns in many countries. Today, world terrorist networks
are operating in all regions, and their ideologists and commanders use computer programs,
camcorders and satellite antennas to supervise their commandos and control them from
mountain caves or secret residences.
The Iran-sponsored Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas pose a tremendous terrorist
threat. Meanwhile, as it were, keeping in the background and without bringing fire upon itself,
Iran is steadily preparing to destroy Israel, an aim that the Iranian leaders have more than once
publicly proclaimed.
The US, EU and Russia – the pillars of world politics – recognize Israel’s right to counter
terrorism but have so far failed to check effectively Iran’s aggressive plans. What will happen if
Israel is left in the position of a sacrifice intended to appease the appetite of a new aggressor?
That was how the appeasement policy towards Hitler that got the upper hand in Munich in 1938
left Czechoslovakia in the lurch. The following year (1939) Poland was sacrificed with the same
aim. As is known, instead of “peace for generations to come”, that policy brought about the most
gory and destructive war in human history.
Should this ideology and practice of the Iranian extremists meet with no rebuff, as Nazi ideology
failed to be rebuffed in its time, Israel will not be the only one to face the new threat. Like
Czechoslovakia seventy years ago, Israel is the first but not the last target of Islamic extremism,
terrorism and programmes to obtain nuclear weapons. Their aim is to subordinate or destroy the
entire modern European civilization, with which the US and Russia unconditionally associate
themselves despite the attempts of certain circles in these countries to pose as friends of the
Islamic world or to serve as go-betweens in its relations with the West.
For all the similarities and analogies with the 1920s and 1930s, history never exactly repeats
itself. Today Israel has to tackle a mission of universal importance virtually singlehanded.
Although in the past millions of unarmed people, elderly citizens, women and children were
annihilated in death camps with impunity, Israel will now be able to defend itself in case of need
in the face of nuclear holocaust.
Anyway, the problem is not only the Iranian nuclear programme, nor even the threat of a clash
between Iran and Israel. An attempt to repeat in the early twenty-first century a political
scheme implemented in the second quarter of the twentieth century with other parties but
similar aims is truly the most alarming reality of our day. The world paid dearly for having
underestimated the plans of the Third Reich leaders. The main problem of our day is the
possibility of a replay of the political mistakes of the past on a far larger scale due to the spread
of nuclear weapons.
