Bush's Neville Chamberlain Moment - Part 2

I have previously posted of Bush's selling out of Israel in Gaza as his Neville Chamberlain moment.

Now, Wretchard of The Belmont Club has posted an astute historical analysis of Europe's appeasement of Hitler during his rise to power, culminating with Neville Chamberlain's gift of the Sudetenland. Wretchard notes that

Nor was it the case that Hitler compelled concessions from the reluctant statesmen of the West; on the contrary, they fell all over themselves to expiate their own guilt: the guilt of Versailles, the embarrassment of colonial empires.

Wretchard posts this essay -- not for historical insight alone, but to shed light on what was happening in Israel last week -- the gifting of Gaza to the terrorist-infested Palestinian Authority.

This is the section of Wretchard's piece that bothers me the most:

The British and French policy of the 1930s is appeasement only in hindsight. Back then it was a roadmap to peace -- "peace in our time". Nor was it the case that Hitler compelled concessions from the reluctant statesmen of the West; on the contrary, they fell all over themselves to expiate their own guilt: the guilt of Versailles, the embarrassment of colonial empires.

My purpose in posting this is once again to draw attention -- not only to Condoleeza Rice's utter lack of understanding of what needs to be done vis-a-vis Israel -- but to highlight that -- in hindsight -- President Bush is going to realize the depth of his appeasement of terrorists regarding Israel, even while mired in a war of his own against terrorists.

If Bush's Israel policies are not the mark of an insane man, they are at least the policies of a man who is able to "compartmentalize" truth to an unhealthy degree. For Bush, what is good for the US in its "War on Terror" (an absolutely asinine term for a war against Islamofascists) is manifestly NOT good for Israel.

The precedents that Bush has -- unhappily -- set for Israel, will without doubt come back to bite him (and us) in the days ahead in the context of our own war against throatslitting terrorists.

Yes. I fear that one day (not long off), in hindsight, Bush will finally realize -- sadly, too late -- that he indeed had his "Neville Chamberlain" moment when he not only defended the appeasement of the Palestinians by giving them the Gaza settlements and Gush Katim, but by also keeping curiously silent while his troublesome Secretary of State uttered asinine statements to the effect that Israel's withdrawal from Gaza was "a good first step."

For those who find their breath taken away by Condi's brash? ignorant? malicious? insane? (all of the above?) statements, there is, perhaps, some sense of sanity to be found in Charles Krauthammer's recent column in the Washington Post analyzing Israel's future strategy in light of the ongoing Gaza withdrawal.