Sunday, July 24, 2005
(Another) failure of appeasement
The unsightly wart of European appeasement was freeze-blasted after Chamberlain. The virus that produced it has, however, remained active. Long-buried symptoms are being aired in the wake of 7/7.
Like this hideous outbreak in the 1970s, described by Michael Portillo in yesterday's Sunday Times:
As tributes were paid last week to Sir Edward Heath, I recalled his appalling decision in 1970 to release the Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled. She had hijacked an Israeli airliner but was exchanged by Britain for hostages seized in another hijack.
The Black September group to which she belonged subsequently murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
The Germans released the perpetrators in return for yet more hostages.
(Emphasis mine)
The list of oversights, blunders and embarrassments engendered by the desire to avoid confrontation is truly appalling. See, inter alia:
Mark Steyn
Niall Ferguson
On real goings-on in disunited, disaffected British Muslim communities:
Abdul-Rehman Malik
(Ha'aretz reports that Moshe Dayan's eyepatch is being pitched on eBay for 75 large. ... developing ...?...)
