Forgive but do not Forget

 

In a small European town there lived a sheriff who believed he had solutions to all problems.  One day a fire broke out in a community house.  People gathered around the fire wondering what to do when the sheriff gave orders to form a fire brigade.  A group of farmers formed a line from the riverside to the burning house.  Each farmer was given a pail to bring water to the burning building.  From hand to hand went the pail, quickly, until it reached the first person close to the burning house.  With a big heave the water would be emptied on the fire. The sheriff observed that the fire was taking too long to be extinguished.  He found a pail, not realizing that it was full of gasoline, he ran to the fire and emptied the contents, thus engulfing the building and making the fire more damaging than ever before and burning down the town. 

The above story reminds me of what is taking place in the Balkans and how we are dealing with the problem.  Instead of having an organized approach to this terrible problem we seem to be pouring more and more gasoline on the fire. 

NATO reports that over 700,000 refugees are homeless. Ethnic Albanian communities are totally gone. The so called ethnic Albanians pray for a miracle but none seem to be happening.  The more NATO bombs fall, the more the Serbs retaliate.  The damage is incomprehensible. 

Who is to blame for all of this? 

Evil Slobodan Milosevic is sticking to his plans.  Kosovo will be Serbian and rid of any ethnic Albanians.  He claims that there really is no Serb aggression, it is NATO that is aggressor.  Look here, he seems to say.  We are fighting for statehood.  All countries and nationalities fight for statehood.  All we want is our homeland, Serbia, to be free of ethnic Albanians.  If ethnic cleansing means moving hundreds of thousands of people to other countries then we are guilty of that in the name of national determination. We don't kill, he claims, we deport.   He fools his people and the world, by stating if anything, it is NATO that has been killing people.  The recent air attacks show that the bombs have, indeed, fallen on innocent people.  Each bomb causes havoc and spreads death.  I have a consummate hatred for that man.

It is no great miracle for NATO to bomb the land into the stone age.  It will, however, be a miracle to rebuild the land from the stone age. 

Which ethnic Albanian in his right mind will want to return to Kosovo.  If and when they do, they won't blame Slobodan Milosevic for the carnage they will end up blaming NATO.  Ironically it is NATO that is finding homes for the displaced ethnic Albanians.  Their organization for the resettlement of these people guarantees Milosevic's plan of a Moslem free Serbia.

The Balkans have been fighting for 600 years.  They have inbred hatred but have co-existed.  Milosevic has fewer than 30,000 troops. By involving NATO he has been able to put 700,000 people into misery.  He has caused the death of innocent people.  It is so unfortunate that he has been helped by our bombs. 

If anything we should go after the man and not the country.  By bombing and destroying the land we galvanize the enemy and antagonize the Russian neighbors. 

The answer to this dilemma is to find out how democratic countries such as Israel deal with religious differences. 

Palestinians want a homeland.  They want Israel's capital, Jerusalem, to be their capital.  This is no less than what is taking place in Yugoslavia.  Israel does not want that to happen. 

But does Israel bomb the refugee camps?  Do they ask America to call in NATO to perform air strikes, destroy homes and displace people?  No, Israel holds talks and then more talks and negotiations.  They meet in Oslo, they meet in France, in the White House, and in Jordan.  They will do anything but have an outright war.

True there are those who oppose the talks and protests.  There are those that blow up buses and market places but Israel does not do mass deportations nor ethnic cleansing.  Israel searches out the perpetrators and destroys only the perpetrators' home.

  A strong Israel does not take advantage of its superior military strength.  It does everything possible to keep the peace.  The State of Israel has chosen not to do what NATO is guilty of doing, killing and bombing in the name of peace.  They have chosen a more humane way to deal with people who hate them, people who swear to drive them into the sea.

The Holocaust had taught the Jewish state a very important lesson.  Never to forget what was done to them.  To them the message of 'never forgetting' brings to always forgiving.  The Serbs have taken the message 'never to forget' to mean 'never forgive'.  Now they repeat the same sins of their former oppressors.  They must be stopped. 

President Clinton has said "We must follow the example of the World War II generation by standing up to aggression and hate, and then by following through with a post-conflict strategy for reconstruction and renewal."  Mr. Clinton is pretty far off track.  World War II generations lived through a war of untold proportions which was started by a Hitler who had a country of hundreds of thousands of soldiers with aspirations to conquer the entire world. 

I know Milosevic's plans are bad for ethnic Albanians but he is no Hitler and remember, displacement is not genocide.  Milosevic is one terrible man whom I despise deeply and would like to see him gone as soon as possible from the face of the earth.  But let us not help him win his war. 

The Jewish state has shown us the path.  They have the correct way to deal with ethnic differences.

It is leaderships that must be replaced and not countries destroyed.

It would do NATO good to study Israel's policies and to learn from them.