Some 120,000 people have died in 30 months of civil war in     Syria. Almost half the country's people have been turned into refugees. The entire region could implode. Western intervention is not on the cards. A cruel regime is backed by stronger and more rapacious patrons who aspire to rule the region. America, its European allies and the international community will not confront them. They will sit down with them and negotiate — and because Netanyahu is not that good in their eyes, he has been made the enemy of the perfect deal, which, like Munich in 1938, will only delay war, not prevent it.

There is one difference. Netanyahu, unlike Milan Hodza, the Czechoslovak Prime Minister in 1938 who was told to accept Munich or face Nazi Germany alone, has prepared for the eventuality of being sold down the river. Speaking at the UN, Netanyahu said: "If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone." Unlike Czechoslovakia in 1938, Israel has the capability to act alone — and its threats have never been empty.

Maybe diplomacy will stop Iran's march towards nuclear weapons. Maybe Iran, after all, is a sheep in wolf's clothing. Maybe Rouhani's charm is not just an offensive. Maybe Assad is better than al-Qaeda. But none of this means that acquiescing in a dictator who has gassed his own people will bring good into the world. Or that just because warnings are being issued by Israel's prime minister — whose motives are self-serving after all, since he wishes to save his country from possible annihilation — we should discount them.

Berneri's era offers a lesson for the present. In 1936, the West abandoned Spain's Popular Front and left it to fend for itself because its friends and backers were a distasteful bunch. The lack of resolve over Spain cemented the appeasement mood and emboldened Nazi Germany. The rest, as they say, is history. We should try to learn. But I doubt anyone ever will.

After all, in his April 2012 speech at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., President Obama very compellingly said: "We must tell our children about how this evil was allowed to happen — because so many people succumbed to their darkest instincts, and because so many others stood silent." He went on to list all that his administration would do with respect to Syria "so that those who stick with Assad know that they are making a losing bet".