Can the Left Abandon Appeasement?

Back in 2004 the German writer Henryk Broder wrote to Welt am Sonntag to say that “Europa - dein Familienname ist Appeasement!” Interesting how he used the English word. The German for appeasement, according to Google, is “Beschwichtigung.” Yes. It means what you think it does. “Europe, thy family name is appeasement.”

Subsequently, Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, publisher of Die Welt, wrote a stinging amplification: “Europe - Thy Name is Cowardice.”

But let us be charitable to our liberal and lefty friends. Their whole belief system is predicated on the moral necessity of appeasement towards the oppressed and the marginalized, beginning with the working class in 1850. What else would they do?

It was a belief system that worked well for them for over a century. And it also gave them enormous political power.

But the question now before us is: Should we continue the policy of appeasement when it is the Muslim immigrants to Europe and the mad mullahs of Iran that are demanding it?

The saving grace of the old appeasement was that the workers, and after them the blacks, women, and gays, were in the last analysis loyal citizens of their nation states. But the Muslims immigrants may not be. Their first loyalty may be to their faith not to their adopted country.

If that is the case the wages of appeasement is not going to be merely a large public sector and economic stagnation, but something rather bloody.

But can the left change its belief system and its whole way of life in response to the new challenge?

In Israel, according to Dennis Prager, the left that was critical of Israeli policy in the occupied areas of Gaza and the West Bank has all of a sudden changed its tune. Writes Amos Oz, Israeli author and leftist:

"Many times in the past, the Israeli peace movement has criticized Israeli military operations. Not this time. . . . This time, Israel is not invading Lebanon. It is defending itself from daily harassment and bombardment of dozens of our towns and villages. . . . There can be no moral equation between Hezbollah and Israel. Hezbollah is targeting Israeli civilians wherever they are, while Israel is targeting mostly Hezbollah."

But has the mainstream left in Europe or in the United States reached the tipping point where they can no longer continue down the road of appeasement? Don’t hold your breath.