Editor's Notebook
Let Truth Be Told
a political triumph, then seek to unleash even more suicide
ying helps persuade. Saying the same lie repeatedly
bombers, the fences keeping them out of Israel be damned.
morphs into something believable. The act requires
Witness Tuesday's suicide blast in Netanya. Palestinian terror
patience and a lack of conscience to reap dividends.
groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad gain encouragement
But repetitiveness can be a great equalizer and influencer.
from the success of this "infidel fighting" method in Iraq.
The Palestinians have exploited this. We Jews have not.
Israel cannot win by only reacting to terror. It also must
This is why the Palestinians, after nearly five years of wag-
actively seek condemnation of Palestinian terror in the civi-
ing terror against its more powerful neighbor — Israel —
lized world. Military sweeps to destroy bomb-belt factories
still hold the upper hand. They're still deemed the victim in
and targeted assassinations of terrorist leaders aren't eno ugh.
much of the world.
Why? "Because the Palestinians will just continue to build a
With surprise their strongest weapon, they prod Israelis to
always look over a shoulder, wondering who base to practice their stuff against our defenses and prepare
for the next surprise attack," Dr. Jacobs said.
next will literally explode in the name of
His conclusion should spur us: "We may win one by one
Allah as part of a grand scheme to murder
by
one by one, but we'll exhaust ourselves swatting mosqui-
Jews and expunge the Jewish state.
toes."
Incredibly, the Palestinians, under Yasser
The U.S. is undercutting its best friend in the Middle
Arafat and now Mahmoud Abbas, have
East, laments a probe released by the Jerusalem-based
deluded themselves into excising anti-
Palestinian Media Watch the day after Dr. Jacobs spoke.
Zionism from racism.
"The Palestinians were willing to invest in
ROBERT A. building a narrative that was currently
SKLAR
unpopular, but if they said it over and
Editor
over and over again, it began to sound
"We may win one by
plausible," said Dr. Charles Jacobs, direc-
tor of the Boston-based David Project, whose mission is to
analyze the new ideological assault on Israel and the
one by one by one, but
human rights community's failure to rally for justice in the
Middle East. "So, I'm worried that if we Jews don't find a
we'll exhaust ourselves
way to build an alternative narrative and to say some
things about the other side that may be currently unpopu-
lar, I think that we're going to be stuck where we are and
swatting mosquitoes."
we won't regain ground."
Here's a Jew shedding the kid gloves and declaring to
Dr. Charles Jacobs
America's Jewish press that the Palestinians have over-
whelmed Israel with the power of the word. The Nazis
exploited propaganda against Europe's Jews to maximum
effect leading up to and during World War IL We haven't
countered the Palestinians' edge with a massive show of
truth. Israel is no angel but it's no purveyor of terror.
Palestinian universities host branches of Hamas and Islamic
At the annual convention of the American Jewish Press
Jihad, yet the Palestinian Authority attracts millions of dol-
Association in Boston, I made it a point to hear Dr. Jacobs,
lars in U.S. aid. PA.-sponsored sporting events, teams and
who has pressed to make Israel's case on U.S. campuses
arenas glorify terrorists. And street names honor terrorists in
where Arab sympathies flourish in the wake of the divest-
Palestinian towns where the U.S. funds road works.
ment campaign.
P.A. TV this year showed a cleric preaching, "Islam would
In his June 23 talk, he decried that Jews, especially college
conquer the U.S. and other Christian countries while exter-
students, lack the confidence and knowledge to dissect
minating all Jews." Official broadcasts urge kids to become
Palestinian lies: I blame Jewish parents and organizational
martyrs in the struggle to claim Israel as the Palestinian
leaders for this lack of a Jewish spine on the propaganda-
homeland.
fighting front. We're so busy arguing
Our taxes, through the U.S. Agency
"right versus left" Israeli politics, and so
for International Development, unwit-
caught up in our personal lives, that
tingly support this battle plan, built on a
we've let the liars among Palestinians run
platform of cunning and exaggeration.
Why are so many Jewish
wild. Like the David Project maintains,
"We've been negative messaged upon and
college
students
so
our timidity has allowed anti-Zionists to
it's working against us," Dr. Jacobs said.
politically
inept
at
discredit Israeli defensive strikes and
We must expose the lies that make
countering anti-Zionism
whitewash Arab atrocities against Jews.
these messages so appealing. Dr. Jacobs is
on
their
campuses?
It's naive to think the Palestinians will
right: If we don't, the ordinary citizen of
embrace the peace process just because
Ramallah, Gaza City and other anti-
Are you outraged that the
we want them to. I agree with Dr.
Zionist hotbeds will say, "These are nor-
terrorist-inspired
Jacobs: "If we do that, we're going to
mal, nice people who have pinpointed
Palestinians
have
managed
always be on the defensive."
wrongs with Israel. Why shouldn't Israel
to
portray
Israel
as
a
On the defensive is precisely where
be called out?"
Nazi-like occupier?
Israel is poised. Arab terrorists will por-
Despite military and economic superi-
tray the Sharon administration's soldier
ority, Israel can't beat guerilla fighters
More
on
the
David
Project:
and settler pullout from the Gaza Strip
with that kind of persuasive force. ❑
www.davidproject.org
and northern West Bank this summer as
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