By J. Zel Lurie
DELRAY BEACH, Florida — In my early years I was a confirmed pacifist. At Cornell University in the 30s I proudly wore a 2% button. Exactly what the 2% represented has been lost in the folds of memories I recall that the Oxford University Union adopted a resolution about 2% of the peoples of the world refusing to bare arms.
Adolf Hitler’s first violation of the Versailles Treaty ending World War I was to send his then tiny army into the Rhineland. Historians are more or less united in the belief that had the French Army opposed him he would have withdrawn his forces and thus stopping his ambitions.
I supported the French Army’s reluctance to go to war. We were wrong.
Today masked members of Russian Special Forces have taken over government building in eastern Ukraine. Sanctions against Russia will not expel them. They must be expelled by European and American Special Forces.
Let’s not make the same Pacifist mistake that we did 80 years ago which resulted in World War II and the Holocaust.
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J. Zel Lurie, a centenarian, has been editor of various Jewish publications in Israel and the United States.