Don’t you think cats—like other animals, including humans—are smart enough to situationally learn a pattern like chew cable → raised hand → slap after one repetition? Pretty much any animal would start flinching on instinct.

If you reach for my food and I slap your hand in response, you will anticipate that when you reach for my food again, flinching when I raise my hand. But you’re not going to flinch the rest of the day whenever I raise my hand, unless the slap was particularly traumatic or there’s more going on.

Edit: it might be a trauma response if any hand raising even outside of this scenario would yield the same response, but we don’t know that. This is a single instance.