Another Tack: Denial of denial

No matter how much denial is smugly stuffed down our throats by homegrown swaggering braggarts, any and every territory which Israel has ever ceded to its still-vital and still-implacable enemies became a breeding ground for festering terror and aggression against the still-vulnerable Jewish state.

It takes stupefying cerebral contortions to deny that this was unequivocally demonstrated in Lebanon (where Hezbollah mushroomed to monstrous proportions after Ehud Barak’s unilateral midnight flight of 2000), in Judea and Samaria (whose cities Israel relinquished post-Oslo), in the Gaza Strip (which in 2005 we ditched via Ariel Sharon’s disastrous disengagement) and in Sinai, whose border with Israel now looms as the most potentially explosive.

No degree of denial-neurosis can belittle this. Each Israeli retreat, without a single solitary exception, comes back to haunt us with vicious vengeance. Continue reading

Another Tack: Romney comes up trumps

There’s just no limit to how common sense can be twisted with a few syrupy sentences.

Take for example Jibril Rajoub’s letter of thanks to International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge for nixing a minute’s silence to commemorate the Israeli athletes slain by Fatah terrorists 40 years ago at the Munich Olympics.

Thus wrote Fatah honcho Rajoub, chairman of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and the Palestinian Football Association: “Sport is a bridge for love, unification and for spreading peace among the nations, and it must not be a cause for divisiveness and for the spreading of racism.”

Rajoub cloyingly ticked all the de rigueur boxes of the sentimental claptrap that has become the hallmark of progressive prattle. He after all came out for “love” and “unification” and against “divisiveness” and “racism.” Continue reading

Another Tack: Lacunar amnesia is cool

Science attributes selective memory to defense mechanisms that generate blanks in patients’ awareness to repress trauma or humiliation. The result can manifest as lacunar amnesia, where the mind’s record-keeping is impeded by a gap (lacuna) relating to specific events.

In individual psychology these gaps form involuntarily. But in the spheres of politics and propaganda they become intentional and inherently advantageous. It pays to deliberately blot out entire episodes, decades and even eras. Cynical misrepresentation thrives on erasing contexts and causal connections.

Therefore, not forgetting what we’re encouraged to forget is critical. Continue reading

Zoabi’s incitement

It sounded quite unthinkable, but Knesset member Haneen Zoabi (Balad) blamed Israel for the recent slaying of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria. “Israel is not a victim, not even when civilians are killed,” she declared in an interview with Channel 10.

Zoabi elaborated: “Israel’s policy of occupation is at fault. If there was no occupation, no repression and no blockade, then this wouldn’t have happened.”

Her comments failed to rouse furor among the Israeli public, which has grown inured to brazen provocation from Arab MKs bankrolled by Israeli taxpayers. Our local media reported the story, but on the whole abstained from comment. Continue reading