A statesman in modern democracies is a politician of one sort or another and is accountable in the end to the body politic he serves. He cannot ignore the will of the people. In this‚ he is the same as any mediocre politician. What distinguishes the statesman is that he is willing to take the lead‚ certainly with tact and using his powers of persuasion‚ but not with deviousness. He respects the people who empower him; he acts on principle; and he is willing to risk his power for the sake of principle. (READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: Has the Radical Left Finally Hit a Wall?) An example in American history is John Adams’ handling of the explosive XYZ Affair which nearly led to war with France. France warred on American trade with its enemy‚ Britain‚ seizing American ships and cargo‚ among other acts of war. Adams sought to find a solution with France that would stop what has been called the Quasi-War without sacrificing American interests. American politics‚ though‚ made this difficult. The two-party system had emerged in full force‚ and the parties were at each other’s throats. The Jeffersonian Republicans accused the Federalists of wanting to scuttle the republic and make America a monarchy. It did not like the Jay Treaty‚ which reestablished trade with Britain after the Revolution‚ and seemed to them part of the sinister plot to go back on the break with Britain and its system of governance. They favored the cause of the new French Republic and argued for it loudly and passionately. The Federalists‚ on the other hand‚ desired a rapprochement with Britain and rejected the French government as dangerous and violent. Under the leadership of Alexander Hamilton‚ they rejected compromise and wished to fight it out with France. Adams thought peace was possible and necessary. He agreed with neither the Republicans nor the increasingly bellicose Federalists‚ even though the latter were his political party. He realized that he was not so pro-French as to gain the support of the Jeffersonians and that he was not so pro-British as to maintain the support of his own party’s dominant anti-France wing. His own sense of duty to country led him to take the middle position‚ which he successfully pursued through to the treaty of 1800‚ ending the Quasi-War. But in doing so‚ he incurred the wrath of Hamilton‚ who made a strong and successful effort to scuttle Adams’ re-election campaign. Hamilton had made it clear what would happen were Adams to settle with France‚ but‚ as Adams put it later‚ “Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.” And being a man of principle and character‚ that mattered more to him than his own election. [Biden] is seeking to please the destructive forces his master‚ Obama‚ brought into the Democrat mainstream. Adams wrote that the America he left at the end of his term was a nation “with its coffers full …[with] fair prospects of peace with all the world smiling in its face‚ with commerce flourishing‚ its navy glorious‚ its agriculture uncommonly productive and lucrative.” He had no regrets at all. He wrote a friend: “I desire no other inscription on my gravestone than: ‘Here lies John Adams‚ who took upon himself the responsibility of peace with France in the year 1800.’” Neville Chamberlain failed as a statesman. His policy of appeasement resulted in a war fought on far worse terms than a courageous early confrontation with Hitler would have afforded‚ even given the inadequacies of Britain’s war readiness at the time. Chamberlain’s failure impacted all of Europe and all the world. It was the worst for Hitler’s imagined enemy‚ the Jews. His policies greased the skids for the German juggernaut that would overrun the center of Jewish population‚ the communities of Eastern Europe and Russia. By the time of Chamberlain’s Munich capitulations‚ the Jews under his governance had been denied political rights‚ had become excluded from the professions‚ the schools and universities‚ and were being eliminated from the national economic life. Tens of thousands had fled Germany‚ thousands of whom fled to the Holy Land‚ that had been designated by its mandated power‚ Britain‚ as a place to establish a Jewish national home and this had been ratified internationally in the San Remo Treaty at the end of World War I. But now‚ war was looming. Even Chamberlain saw his policies had failed‚ and total war was on the horizon. Now it was 1939‚ and the Jews of Poland felt the icy fingers stretching towards them. Zionists‚ in particular‚ the visionary Jabotinsky‚ tried to galvanize a mass exodus to the homeland before the Jews were caught in disaster. But now Chamberlain sought to rescue his policies and his country by betraying the people whom he had endangered most. In a double betrayal‚ his government pushed through a new policy on their Holy Land mandate — an end to Jewish immigration‚ with the laughable rationalization that by having admitted the Jews already present‚ they had fulfilled their pledge to make a homeland- haven for the Jews. (READ MORE: No Culture Is Immune to Human-Made Horrors) Chamberlain’s Colonial Secretary at the time‚ Malcolm MacDonald‚ later spoke of the real reason for this policy. Our policy would either offend the Jews or the Arabs‚ MacDonald said. If we displeased the Arabs‚ they could join their cause to the Germans. If we displeased the Jews‚ they had no other option. Therefore‚ we took the position that pleased the Arabs in the hope that it would stop them from actively backing our enemies. One who was a great statesman took the new Chamberlain policy to task. In Parliament‚ Winston Churchill rose to speak. An outcast in his own party for his stinging criticism of Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler‚ and who suffered political exile‚ Churchill spoke his mind and his conscience without fear: We must ask ourselves another question‚ which arises out of this: Can we — and this is the question — strengthen ourselves by this repudiation? Shall we relieve ourselves by this repudiation? I should have thought that the plan put forward by the Colonial Secretary in his White Paper‚ with its arid constitutional ideas and safety catches at every point‚ and with vagueness overlaying it and through all of it‚ combines‚ so far as one can understand it at present‚ the disadvantages of all courses without the advantages of any. The triumphant Arabs have rejected it. They are not going to put up with it. The despairing Jews will resist it. Churchill lost this fight. The Chamberlain government shut off immigration just when its need was greatest. In so doing he not only incurred guilt for the death of millions of Jews but did not placate the Arabs any more than he placated Hitler. When given German support‚ Iraq revolted and established a pro-German regime that unleashed terror on its ancient Jewish population just as Hitler was doing in Europe and as Hamas has been doing and intends to keep doing in Israel today. Churchill was by then leading Britain‚ and in a daring gamble‚ he sent a small elite strike force that expelled the Iraqi Nazis along with the leader of the violent Palestinian Arabs‚ the Mufti of Jerusalem‚ who spent the rest of the war recruiting Bosnian Muslims to work in the Nazi extermination camps and hobnobbing with Hitler now and then about other ways of eliminating the Jews. And now to today. Frankly‚ I have been surprised that Biden has offered such support of Israel as he has. But he is far more the politician worried about maintaining his base than a statesman in the Adams mold‚ let alone Churchill’s. He and his party have welcomed in staunch and outspoken supporters of destroying the whole state of Israel‚ whose representatives in Congress have not been publicly criticized by him even when they mouth vile antisemitic slanders and who receive no reproof for not for refusing to criticize Hamas’ revival of rape‚ murder‚ torture‚ and kidnapping as an instrument of policy. With grand deviousness‚ Obama had already committed Biden’s party to support Iran‚ the new headquarters of exterminationist antisemitism. Biden and his party have chosen to relieve Iran of the oil embargo‚ pouring tens of billions into its treasury‚ which in turn went to the war machines of Hamas‚ Hezbollah‚ and the Houthis. Trump ran against this policy in 2016‚ and ended it. Biden put it back in place. Confronted with the full horrors of Hamas atrocities and their pledge to continue them without end‚ Biden feels the pull of principle and of bedrock morality. Yet his sense of political danger compromises him‚ as he refuses to end the policies which simultaneously support that which he morally condemns. (READ MORE: Let’s Surround Our Rights With a Culture of Meaning) He is failing as a statesman. He is seeking to please the destructive forces his master‚ Obama‚ brought into the Democrat mainstream. Like Chamberlain and MacDonald‚ his policy pleases neither the great majority of Americans who are with Israel in its struggle to crush the new Nazism‚ nor America’s own woke-Nazis. If our leaders will not follow the lead of democracies great statesmen‚ it remains to us. And it was Churchill himself who said that the compliments were due to the people. It was they‚ he said‚ “that had the lion’s heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.” That is‚ in the end‚ the message of our constitutions. If we‚ the people‚ will be the lions‚ we will find the one to roar. 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