France 1939; Israel 2008

On December 22, 1939, the French newspaper l’Epoque reported that Germany’s agents of influence in France were engaged in a plot to convince Marshal Petain to accept the leadership of a government of national unity that included the most notorious French defeatists and quislings.

The plotters wanted the aged Marshall to play unwittingly the role analogous to that of General Sivory in Czechoslovakia, opening the door to a Hitler in a moment of despondency. (Czechoslovakia, recall, was the victim of Chamberlain’s policy of “territory for peace.”)

It so happens that Georges Mandel, French Minister of Interior and director of counter-espionage, was fully cognizant of Hitler’s ambitions and of how his accomplices in France were plotting the country’s downfall. On the eve of the French Government’s enforced evacuation from Paris, and just prior to its conquest by the Germans on June 14, 1940, Mandel leveled a blistering indictment against France’s political and military leadership as well as its intelligence services: “Worst of all, you didn’t understand the one phenomenon you had to understand in order to save your country. You didn’t understand Hitler. You didn’t understand that he was planning total war. You never stopped to consider that total war is—total. That it really includes everything. You didn’t see what was coming closer and closer. And we who did see were called hysterical.”

The parallel with Israel may appear striking. Recall how, in September 1993, the government led by Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres opened the door to Hitler’s successor, Yasser Arafat via the Oslo or Israel-PLO Agreement. Notice that Israel’s military leaders and intelligence services passively adopted Oslo and the defeatist attitude of Israel’s political Establishment.

In the case of Israel, however, no intelligence services were necessary to see that Arafat was committed to this country’s total destruction. He made this palpably clear, again, and again, and again. The same may be said his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the PLO-Palestinian Authority—who can hardly be called the “soft cop” vis-à-vis Hamas leader Ismail Haniyah.

But Israel’s ruling elites stubbornly refuse to see what any normal person could see in Arafat’s and now Abbas’s villainy. What blinded these elites—these nominal Jews? I will tell you via Max Nordau’s 1896 book Degeneration.

Nordau, a practicing psychiatrist as well as a social critic, regarded Europe as steeped in degeneration. This degeneration, he saw, was rooted in egoism on the one hand, and a lack of firm moral principles on the other. He noticed that degenerates tend to be moral relativists. They deny any objective standards of good and evil. Hence their egoism.

It is egoism that prevents Israel’s ruling elites from destroying the evil personified by the PLO-Palestinian Authority (or of Hamas). By definition, such egoists-cum-degenerates cannot wholeheartedly confront evil.

Tainted by moral relativism, they are psychologically incapable of accepting moral responsibility for their failed policy of “territory for peace,” which has resulted in the murder of some 1,600 Jews and the wounding of many thousands more.

When asked by CNN how he feels about having supplied the Arabs with the guns being used to kill Jews, Shimon Peres replied with this idiocy: “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”

And why do Arabs kill Jews, Mr. Peres? Can it be because they are Jews?

If the author of Oslo, now Israel’s President—thanks to the votes of a degenerate Knesset—had a stitch of honor, he would have left the political arena long ago. Instead, he struts on the world stage as Israel’s “elder statesman.” The egoism of this guru is extraordinary. He repeatedly boasts we can learn nothing from history.

Turning to Ehud Olmert, Israel’s current Prime Minister, such is the height of his egoism (or shamelessness) that even if indicted for various criminal charges, the odds are he will remain in office and continue to disgrace himself as well as Israel. He once boasted he was tired of being courageous. Unfortunately, he is not tired of being Israel’s Prime Minister.

Another exemplar of egoism is Israel bungling Defense Minister General Ehud Barak, who once declared that had he been born an Arab, he too would be an Arab terrorist! What a role model for members of the Israel Defense Forces! How can this mindless relativist inspire Israel with patriotism and confidence in the justice of her cause?

Let me say only this of Ariel Sharon. While Jews were being reduced to body parts, the former Prime Minister uttered this senseless piece of moral relativism: “my son Omri taught me not to think in terms of black and white.”

To those who study the history of ideas and of nations, it is clear that moral relativism undermined France. This doctrine flourishes in post-Christian Europe, now succumbing to Islam. It flourishes in Israeli as well as in American universities. It heralds the end of Western civilization.

And yet, if any country can overcome this subversive doctrine it is Israel, thanks to the Torah education of an increasing percentage of Israel’s Jewish population. Therein is the reason for Israel’s rebirth. Once again, it is Israel’s task to save mankind from barbarism.