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July 4, 2014 by Joseph Puder 0 Comments

The Western governments that have pressured Israel into making peace with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority must take into account this simple fact: it is impossible to make peace with a society whose culture is embedded with hate and death. Amer Abu Aysha, 33, and Marwan Kawasme, 29, the apparent murderers of three innocent Jewish-Israeli teens: Naftali Frenkel, 16; Gilad Shaar, 16; and Eyal Yifrach, 19 are but two of thousands who have been carefully taught to hate and kill.

The Times of Israel (June 30, 2014) described the events that led to the heinous murders. “The three teens were waiting at Geva’ot Intersection, west of the settlement of Alon Shvut in the Etzion Bloc south of Jerusalem, soon after 10:15 p.m., looking to catch a ride heading west on Route 367 toward Beit Shemesh, and from there to locations in central Israel where each of them lived.”

For decades Arab-Palestinian youth have been inculcated with a fanatical, genocidal hatred of Israel and Jews through the mosques, schools, and government controlled media. Despite the legislative powers granted the Palestinian Authority as a result of the Oslo Accords, Israeli concessions including the release of Palestinian terrorist murderers, the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, and any future Israel concessions, it would be an illusion to think that the Palestinians will come to terms with a sovereign and independent Jewish state.

An op-ed written by Fathi Al-Bis, in Al Hayat Al-Jadida, the official mouthpiece of the Palestinian Authority (PA) on June 23, 2014, is most revealing. Al-Bis writes: “Israel – a product of myth, racism and war – believes that the conflagration in the region gives it a free hand and respite, and that the flames won’t reach it. It therefore continues to kill, burn, destroy and attack, in all the forms inappropriate to human beings. Its leaders forget that these flames are burning because of it, and will be directed towards it in the end. Israel’s racist and extremist leadership has not learned its lesson. For over 60 years now, it has been killing, causing [people] to flee, expelling, taking prisoners, winning wars and annexing lands. But in reality, it is in crisis, because it has not succeeded in extinguishing the flames in the soul of the Palestinian…

The Israeli lives in the helmets of the soldiers of myth, who are killers and savages…

With the excuse of the disappearance of three settlers (i.e., On June 12, 2014, three Israeli teens were kidnapped and murdered while hitchhiking in the West Bank) who were on a land which did not belong to them, while robbing and challenging the owners of the land, Israel does as it pleases in the West Bank, and threatens Gaza… The Palestinian, with [his] Arab loyalty and identity which knows no sectarianism, confronts Israel. He observes with sadness the flames that surround him and that divert the people of the Arab nation from the duty of the basic and central confrontation, which is with the barbaric Israel. He looks forward to the day when the flames of [this] abhorrent sectarianism will be extinguished, so that everyone will be free to bury the [Israeli] myth that is being lived by the bloodthirsty, helmet-clad and rifle-bearing soldier.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ call for the return of the three kidnapped (now murdered) boys to their families may have been genuine, but we must not forget that his legitimacy comes from abroad, especially from the U.S. administration and the European Union (E.U.), not from the Palestinian people. Abbas (a.k.a. Abu Mazen) has done little to transform or reform the Palestinian educational system. He has failed his people and the prospects of peace by neglecting to prepare Palestinian youth for peace. Instead, Abbas and his Ramallah-based regime have encouraged a culture of hate, violence, and death.

This anti-Jewish, anti-Israel incitement that the PA douses its people with in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) is more than matched by the fanatical hatred coming out of the Islamist regime of Hamas in Gaza. While Abbas and his so called “secular” Fatah party led regime pretend to want accommodation with Israel, Hamas is clear and unapologetic about its aim to destroy the Jewish state.
A Palestinian Unity government that brought together Fatah and Hamas (a recognized terrorist organization) was sworn in on June 2, 2014, and, despite Israeli concerns that it will be dangerously influenced by Hamas, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki announced that same day, “We intend to work with this government, but will be watching closely to make sure it upholds the principles that President Abbas reiterated today.” Psaki added that the U.S. would continue to disperse foreign assistance to the unity government but would “evaluate the policies and positions of the new government.”

As a signatory to the Oslo Accords the U.S. is obligated to condition (financial) aid to the Palestinians based on the fulfillment of their commitment to end incitement against Jews and Israelis. This however has not been the case. There have been – at best – fainthearted efforts on the part of the U.S. and the E.U to demand an end to the demonization of Israel and Jews. Ending Palestinian incitement has not been elevated to a cardinal demand in peace negotiations initiated by the U.S.

Yet, since the Palestinian Authority was established it has systematically indoctrinated young and old to hate Israelis and Jews. Using media, education, and cultural structures that it controls, the PA has actively promoted religious hatred, demonization, conspiracy libels, etc. These are packaged to present Israelis and Jews as endangering Palestinians, Arabs, and all humanity.

This ongoing campaign has been so successful that fighting, murdering and even committing acts of suicide terror against Israelis and Jews are justified by the majority of Palestinians as acting in self-defense and performing Allah’s will. Incitement and demonization constitutes a treaty violation by the Palestinians and reflects on the PA’s failure, since the 1993 Oslo Accords, to create a social climate conducive to peace with Israel. Arafat, Abbas and the PA did not prepare the Palestinian people to understand that they too must make painful concessions for peace, and that the 1948 refugees and their descendants will not be allowed to return to Israel. Moreover, the PA has rejected recognition of Israel as a “State of the Jews,” and, has not renounced the dream of liquidating the Jewish state. Perhaps worst of all, the PA has failed to end the “culture of death.”

In a 2008 broadcast on Al-Aqsa TV Hamas MP Fathi Hammad addressed the Zionists of Israel saying, “We desire death like you desire life.” And, the PA continues to glorify suicide bombers who murder Israelis. City streets and schools are named after them. A school in Gaza was named after Dalal Mughrabi who killed 37 Israeli civilians in the 1978 Coastal Highway Bus attack. The students told interviewers that Mughrabi is a role model for them to emulate.

In his Wall Street Journal opinion piece (July 1, 2014) Bret Stephens keenly asked: “What kind of society produces such mothers? Whence the women who cheer on their boys to blow themselves up or murder the children of their neighbors?” Stephens concluded that “As for the Palestinians and their inveterate sympathizers in the West, perhaps they should note that a culture that too often openly celebrates martyrdom and murder is not fit for statehood, and that making excuses for that culture only makes it more unfit.” The cliché among many western elites that all human beings are able to relate on some level, whatever their cultural differences, is sheer bunk. The Palestinian culture of death that cut short the lives of three promising young Israeli boys is indeed unique, and deadly.