Nov. 27, 1999 --- Ehud Barak
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Israel’s recent decision to receive the Dalai Lama has angered the government of mainland China, which finds that decision especially embarrassing with the presence in Israel of Li Peng, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. The lodging of a formal protest by China’s embassy in Israel has not altered its decision to invite the Dalai Lama, as Israel feels no need to distance itself from the Nobel Prize-winning religious leader who has advocated non-violent protest and called upon the world to be aware of the repression, arrests and slaughter that have taken place in his homeland.

But perhaps Israel needs to distance itself from those against whom the Dalai Lama wages his protests.

In Taiwan, the Ministry of National Defense yesterday (Nov. 25, 1999) issued a report starting that China was most likely to invade Taiwan when both Taipei and Washington are distracted, or when it would be a useful means of diverting attention from a severe domestic crisis addressing legislators, National Defense Minister Tang Fei outlined four possible scenarios in which China might launch a military attack against the island, or between March and May when the weather is conductive to military operations.

“Communist China would resort to a war against Taiwan if it was necessary to deflect domestic attention,” Tang said, adding that a clash is also possible when Taiwan rejects negotiations with the mainland and the mainland public and media are in favor of taking action against the island.

Today, Israel enjoys the commercial benefits of large sales of weapons technology to the mainland, which have improved the accuracy of China’s guided missile systems, and which allow it to target Taiwan, a democratic country whose people enjoy a quality of life that those on the mainland only wish they could have. However, no one in Israel will forget the deaths of 6 million Jews at the hands of German Nazis, and postwar Germany has paid the price for its deeds and admitted responsibility for its war atrocities. Historians point out how the British and French must be held responsible for standing by while Germany annexed the Czech Sudetenland, and how the ostensibly neutral Switzerland supplied Germany the iron ore, bearings and precision instruments it needed for its war machine. British and French appeasement gave Germany the green light for invasion, and the war materials supplied by the Swiss enhanced Germany’s military might, delaying its ultimate defeat and prolonging the suffering of its Jews. Today, Israel is doing precisely what those “innocent” countries did to its forefathers 50 years ago.

Taiwan isn’t a troublemaker, the Foreign Ministry will express its concerns to the Philippines over a code Southeast Asian countries have drafted to defuse tensions in disputed areas in the South China Sea, its spoken said (Nov. 26, 1999).

During the Cold War, important technology with military applications could not be sold to the Soviet Union or East European countries, and though the Soviet Union did all it could to buy or pilfer such technology, the safety net held, forcing it to rely on its own resources to develop the technology with which to oppose the West --- a primary reason it lost the Cold War and finally disintegrated. America’s support of Israel, including economic aid and help in building its powerful military, have been an essential factor allowing Israel to survive for 50 years in the Middle East. But Israel’s sales of precision weaponry and technology to China, which remains hostile to the West, is not only a slap in the face to American friendship but also threatens world peace and possibly even its own security. The Iranian missiles now targeted at Tel Aviv and Haifa were supplied by the same country which now buys missile technology from Israel.

Israel’s refusal to acknowledge the mainland Chinese protest against the visit by the Dalia Lama stems from its belief that it upholds the universally recognized values of peace, democracy and human rights. It needs to begin to take greater responsibility for upholding those values.

As we had known that both the ROC and the United States hope that peace and stability can be maintained in the Taiwan Strait, adding that the ROC has kept in regular contact with the United States over the years, the United States will continue to supply Taiwan with sufficient defensive weapons.

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