Denial is an ugly thing. But it's urgent that we confront it

[Snowden]

Denial is an ugly thing. But it's urgent that we confront it


By Diana West

I've finally discovered what they call "linkage" between the war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But, instead of seeing any connection between what goes on inside Iraq and that fraudulent "peace process" by which the one party wanting "peace" (Israel) is gradually destroyed by the other party using "process" (the Palestinians) I see linkage in the overall American approach to the two war zones. Our strategy is identical. In both cases, it is based on a complete and willful suspension of disbelief. It ignores all evidence to ward off reality.

Take a recent report from Fox News explaining why the Bush administration this week postponed the release of a dossier linking Iran to murder and mayhem in Iraq.

"U.S. military officials say the decision to go public with the findings has been put on hold for several reasons, including concerns over the reaction from Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — as well as inevitable follow-up questions that would be raised over what the U.S. should do about it."

There's so much wrong with this picture it's hard to know where to start. Surely it is Mr. Ahmadinejad who should be concerned about the reaction from the world's sole superpower to findings of Iranian complicity in American combat deaths, and not vice versa. Incredibly, the administration doesn't appear to think so. This is deeply upsetting.

Equally upsetting is the news report's implied suggestion that "follow-up questions" about Iranian aggression are, in effect, more difficult to face than the aggression itself. It's as if the logical conclusion to such findings — in all likelihood, the obvious inference that Iran is already waging war against us — is to be avoided more than the war itself. Better to take the Iranian facts on the ground — the bombings and kidnappings, the backstabbing and subversion, and the American casualties — and just bury them. Otherwise, reality would ruin everything.

This same ostrich-like viewpoint drives administration policy on the Palestinian Authority, which hinges on the contrafactual belief that PA President Mahmoud Abbas is a "moderate." Indeed, the ostrich outlook helps explain President Bush's see-no-, speak-no-, hear-no-evil order this week to bestow an additional $86 million on Abbas. It's not just, for example, as Palestinian Media Watch has noted, that the PA municipality of Yaabid has recently named a school and its main street (newly paved by American taxpayer dollars) in honor of Saddam Hussein. Or that a city block in Jenin was named after a suicide-bomber who killed four Americans in Fallujah. Or that American funds built the PA's Salaf Khalef Sports Center, named for the head of the Black September terror group that was behind the murder of two American diplomats in Sudan and 11 Israeli athletes in Munich.

Mr. Bush's order came shortly after Abbas himself, in a speech marking the 42nd anniversary of co-founding the Fatah Party with terror kingpin Yasser Arafat, exhorted Palestinians to put "our internal fighting aside and raise our rifles only against Israeli occupation." In other words, not only was the "moderate" calling for violence against Israel — a call quickly answered this week when the Fatah-linked Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades, acting with Islamic Jihad, sent a killer to self-detonate in an Israeli bakery — he was also calling for reconciliation with forces of Hamas, the jihadist terror group. As if to underscore his message, Abbas went on to praise assassinated Hamas guru, Ahmed Yassin. He also invoked rankly anti-Semitic verses from the Koran (5:64) to claim that Jews are corrupting the world.

As Andrew C. McCarthy has written at National Review Online, such actions and behaviors merit "not one thin dime" from the U.S. Regarding this most recent outrage, it is true, as Worldnetdaily.com noted, that most media didn't report the full extent of Abbas' remarks. Indeed, the Associated Press' shamelessly sanitized account — "Abbas calls for respect at Fatah rally" — was mainstream typical. But if I, sitting deskside, could get the real skinny, certainly the U.S. government, with all of its resources, could do the same. In other words, being uninformed is no excuse. The terrible conclusion to draw is that the president, along with too many other political leaders, simply prefers to be uninformed.
Their world looks rosier that way. Which isn't at all to say it's a pretty sight. In fact, it's hideous in its own way, something I'd prefer not to look at. Denial is an ugly thing. But it's urgent that we confront it.

Diana West