By the way, this new policy was a big hit in Berlin.

Winston Churchill saw it differently. He spoke to the House of Commons on May 22, 1939 “as one intimately and responsibly concerned in the earlier states of our Palestine policy,” and insisted that he would not “stand by and see the solemn engagements into which Britain has entered before the world set aside.”

Senator Truman also issued a forthright condemnation that was inserted into the Congressional Record:

“Mr. President, the British Government has used its diplomatic umbrella again,” (this being an unmistakable dig at Chamberlain) “…this time on Palestine. It has made a scrap of paper out of Lord Balfour’s promise to the Jews. It has just added another to the long list of surrenders to the Axis powers.”

When George W. Bush spoke to the Knesset about appeasement, he was speaking to the children and grandchildren of a generation that had gone through unspeakable horror. And the road to holocaust had been paved with appeasement. Yet some supposedly bright people apparently think that a U.S. president sitting down with someone who calls Israel a “stinking corpse” could have some constructive result.

When Harry Truman, in a singular act of political courage, and against the advice of men he admired, recognized the new State of Israel, there is no doubt that he had a sense of the past. The internal world of thought, nurtured as a child through the reading of history, was very present in the man. Shortly after leaving office in 1953, while visiting a Jewish school in New York City, he was introduced as “the man who helped to create the State of Israel” – Truman interrupted and said: “What do you mean ‘helped create?’ I am Cyrus! I am Cyrus!”

Sadly, some in Great Britain were slow to learn. It would take eight months before the Labor government could muster the courage to acknowledge the fledgling nation. Though out of power, Churchill returned to wilderness form as he decried this failure again and again. Speaking to the House of Commons in December of 1948 he mocked the idea that his country had not yet officially recognized Israel:

“The Jews have driven the Arabs out of a larger area that was contemplated in our partition schemes…They have established a government which functions effectively. They have a victorious army at their disposal and they have the support both of Soviet Russia and of the United States. These may be unpleasant facts, but can they be in any way disputed? Not as I have stated them. It seems to me that the government of Israel which has been set up in Tel Aviv cannot be ignored and treated as if it did not exist.”

As in the days of Truman and Churchill, so it is today – some will see appeasement as a panacea. But wiser people know better.

The key is to keep the wiser people in charge.