Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Shimon Peres writes to Russian Prime Minister about Peace
January 25, 2011
To: Mr. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Chairman of the Government of
the Russian Federation
From: Shimon Peres, hero of peace
Re: Those protests this week at the Moscow Airport by Activists and Militants
My heartfelt sympathies to you and the Russia people for the recent
Moscow airport unrest and protests against occupation that were held
this week. However, we must really speak about how to deal with these
forms of activism in Russia, perpetrated by these misunderstood
Chechen activists.
Mister Prime Minister, I have a great deal of experience in dealing
successfully with terrorism and violence, and this is why I wish to
come to your rescue. The first thing you must realize is that one can
only make peace with one's enemies. With one's friends, there is no
need to make peace. There is no military solution to the problems of
terrorism, and this is why you must seek a diplomatic solution. "No
Justice, No Peace?" as they say.
You must invite the leaders of this Chechen organization
responsible for the bloodshed in Moscow to meet with you in the
Kremlin and perhaps tour Petrograd palaces together. You must learn to
feel their pain and understand their needs. The solution is to create
two states for two peoples, one Slavic and one Islamic, inside Russia
itself with Moscow as the joint capital. You must bear in mind that
Russia was once conquered by the Tatars and that makes all of Russia
the homeland of Moslems.
You must meet all the demands of the militants who held the
airport protest in Moscow in full. You must offer them Internet web
services and five-star tourist hotels in exchange for their promising
to pursue peace. After all, that is how we turned Yasser Arafat into
a peace partner. You see, military force serves no role any more in
the post-modern universe. It is passe. It is archaic. Today,
consumer interests dominate the world, and the Islamist activists of
the earth will surely make peace in exchange for some profits from
participating in global trade.
The attacks on Moscow came because you have been insufficiently
sensitive to the needs of the Moslem Other. You took their rhetoric at
face value, whereas we in Israel know that all this rhetoric is empty
and in fact, these people truly want peace. Sure, they praise Hitler
and celebrate genocidal atrocities, but what is it that they REALLY
want? You must negotiate with them even while under attack.
Conditioning negotiations on an end to violence is a no-win situation.
It will simply extend the bloodshed! You must put your own house in
order, and eliminate inequality and injustice inside Russia, and then
the terrorists will no longer target you.
The key is to build a New Middle Eurasia, one in which everyone is
so busy with the important matters of developing tourism,
infrastructure investments and high-technology that they will have no
time to pursue violence. Moreover, if you strike at the perpetrators
of the Moscow airport protests and their supporters, you will simply
expand and enlarge the cycle of violence. Your retaliation bombs will
no doubt injure some innocent children and civilians alongside any
terrorist activists you strike. That will enrage the rest of the world
and make the victims seek revenge. Your violence against these
militants and activists will cause them to hate all Slavs and it will
drive the separatists to embrace terrorism. Moreover, if you refuse
to negotiate with the Moslem separatists, then their leaders will be
toppled and a violent extremist group will take charge. In that case,
you will have lost the window of opportunity to make peace.
Begin by declaring a unilateral ceasefire! Mister Prime Minister,
blessed is the peacemaker. Remember Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. The
entire world will support you and congratulate you if you respond to
these horrific attacks by disarming and opening serious dialogue with
the terror activists. All we are saying is give peace a chance.
Yitzhak Rabin would have approved. Yes, chaver, what you need is
shalom, salaam, peace. You will be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in
recognition. Do not allow yourself to be drawn down into the gutter
of retaliation. Violence never achieves anything. History has no
lessons. History is the dead past.
Follow my example! Provide the Chechen activists and militants
with anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles so that they can battle
against the true radicals and extremists. Moreover, they will do so
with no ACLU or Supreme Court to restrain them! Demonstrate your
humanity by paying pensions to any widows and orphans of the
terrorists who blew up the airport. Mister Prime Minister, my own
peace policies have eliminated war, bloodshed and terror from the
Middle East. We now have only peace partners. If you follow in my
footsteps, you can achieve the same lofty goals.
Peacefully yours,
Shimon Peres, Peacemaker-at-Large