Another Tack: Reality bites

Reality - especially in Israel - is a great source of stress, and so Israelis try their best to avoid it.

By SARAH HONIG
Reality - nowhere more than in this country - is a serious source of stress, and hence is what Israelis try their darndest to avoid. Reality is what our current powers-that-be and opinion-molders urge us to rise above. They go to extraordinary lengths to obscure it. Remember the recent revelation that Shaul Mofaz lied brazenly and barefacedly about an agreement-that-never-was to regulate the border with Egypt? Better we shouldn't know that terrorist armaments and reinforcements can now enter Gaza unhindered. We'll sleep sounder at night. Ignorance is bliss indeed (besides being advantageous to Kadima's political prospects).
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Too bad the not-unpredictable Hamas electoral triumph - a real party pooper - couldn't have likewise been kept from Israel's lulled voters. The last bother our neophyte acting premier needs is for the incontrovertible imbecility of Oslo and its incredibly disastrous disengagement sequel to be underscored once again. The real appalling picture, conspicuously out there, hardly jibes with or enhances Kadima's sales pitch, to say nothing of the Oslo chimera retroactively endorsed by Olmert. If said picture's underlying monstrous motif weren't disregarded (whether deliberately or gullibly), Arafat's minions would have never been imported here en masse, armed to the teeth, counted upon to bring us peace and convert their masses to coexistence. BUT BECAUSE Oslo's progenitors foolhardily dismissed the disheartening picture, they not only established Fatahland on our doorstep, they also admitted 140,000 Palestinians into within-Green-Line Israel under the framework of "family reunions." Those who now whine about the demographic menace, disingenuously contending that it mandates the handover of strategic assets to still-viable undefeated enemies, are the very ones who worsened the demographic balance inside Israel proper. The big picture's broad historical perspectives unmistakably highlight Arab predilection for whatever ideology, international alliance or orientation is most inimical to Israel at any given time, and most conducive to the Arabs' enduring genocidal agenda. Thus, while the Third Reich ruled, Arabs were avid Nazi collaborators. They agitated for a speedier, more extensive Holocaust. Jerusalem Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini, head of the Berlin-based pan-Arab government-in-exile, sealed Hungarian Jewry's fate and foiled the exchange of 10,000 Jewish children. His adherents back home planned local exterminations and relentlessly refused haven to refugees from Hitler's hell. Following WWII, Arab states offered asylum to fleeing Nazi war criminals - including Haj Amin. NEXT, ARABS veered into open Communist arms, not because of Marxism's compelling appeal but because the USSR provided weaponry, training, fighter pilots and unparalleled propaganda facilities. It was then that PLO terrorism first gained the sympathy of assorted fellow travelers, salon socialists, fashionable faculty gurus and intellectually indolent scribblers impressed with the Moscow-contrived freedom-fighter image. With Russian largesse gone, the only reliable leftover resources for financing and succor were among oil-rich Islamic reactionaries bent on world domination - from Iran's ayatollahs to Saudi-bankrolled Wahabis. Muslim zealots were long poised to replace the defunct USSR's remaining ragtag "progressive" proteges, for whom Israel misguidedly created a state. Hamas finally completed its takeover via the ballot box. It was inevitable. Nevertheless, heedless Osloites bet everything on a has-been horse. They welcomed former Soviet lackeys as peace partners, though their ostensible moderation was merely an expedient pose to win friends and influence people - including bamboozled Israeli wishful thinkers, "tired of fighting" (in Olmert's words) and seeking an easy way out. The mind-boggling follow-up to Oslo's collapse was novel: Israel would unilaterally divest itself of vital security holdings. If the PA won't pay for concessions, it'll get them gratis. This policy - alarmingly popular - quickly catapulted Hamas to power because even unilateral quick-fixes aren't made in a vacuum. The other side watched and concluded that Israel is on the run. Whether accurate or wrongheaded, such perceptions themselves become potent ingredients in the region's explosive mix. Loss of deterrence triggers volatile dynamics. Gaza's Hamas chieftain Mahmoud a-Zahar explained that "10 years of negotiations didn't give us what we wanted. Four years of armed struggle" - i.e. terrorist carnage - "frightened the Zionists out of Gaza. Inshallah, we'll send them scurrying from all our lands." This is Hamas parlance for ethnically cleansing all of what's now Israel. Only the details of the Jewish state's demise remain negotiable. Its execution might be stayed (by hudna) if Israel agrees to commit suicide (via jettisoning territory and inundating itself with "returning refugees"). THESE ARE disengagement's bitter fruit. Like Oslo's purveyors, disengagement's champions turned a blind eye to the Arab tradition of latching onto the most anti-Israel sponsor available at any specific juncture. Obsessive peaceniks should have realized that patronless Fatah was a spent force, sure to be succeeded by new Islamo-fascist players. Fatahland next door was bound to lead to Hamastan within rocket-throw of Israel's vulnerable population centers. The only potential consolation in this otherwise dismal tableau is the PA's overdue domination by forces who don't conceal their unbridled hate with politically correct prattle. Logically it should become harder to continue downplaying the threat to Israel from Hitlerite Mufti-torchbearers. Self-delusion is rendered a tad more difficult. The international community, however, can be relied upon to revert to appeasement mode, legitimize and whitewash Hamas, emboldening Israel's Left - both within and outside Kadima - to continue peddling the panacea of additional gratuitous territorial surrenders. Zahar will again boast that terror delivers the goods. His citizenry won't argue with success. Unilateralism will spawn ever-enticing incentives for more bloodshed. Meanwhile, in shrinking Jerusalem, Olmert (with Peres ubiquitously in the background) will show bewildered and brainwashed Israelis how possible it is to stare reality in the eye yet deny it - even when reality bites.