Percentages

Most people react with horror when innocent school students are slain without any provocation. I wanted to believe that all the reports coming from Gaza and the West Bank of people celebrating the deaths of 8 innocent students were staged. There is still a part of me that hopes that the majority of Palestinians do want to live side-by-side with Israel in peace. I'm always the optimist. But certain factors have always dampened those hopes: the hate-filled toward Jews/Israel in Palestinian school books, the hate-filled children's programming spewed out by the Palestinian Authority, the lack of any real effort by the Palestinian Authority to build up an infrastructure to promote businesses and healthy living, and mostly the idea that a child's greatest hope in life is to become a suicide bomber. All of these factors have led to a spiraling culture of death amongst Palestinians.

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- A new poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the attack this month on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight young men, most of them teenagers, an indication of the alarming level of Israeli-Palestinian tension in recent weeks.

The survey also shows unprecedented support for the shooting of rockets on Israeli towns from the Gaza Strip and for the end of the peace negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli leaders.

The pollster, Khalil Shikaki, said he was shocked because the survey, taken last week, showed greater support for violence than any other he had conducted over the past 15 years in the Palestinian areas. Never before, he said, had a majority favored an end to negotiations or the shooting of rockets at Israel...

Further in the article I first read at Solomonia, a staggering 84% of Palestinians support the idea it is okay to murder teenage students as they study. I'm sure some half-wits will try to twist and manipulate the poll numbers in order to blame Israel. I really thought blaming the victim was so passe. But I guess when it is those bloody and evil Zionists, all rules of human rights go out the door.

Billions and billions in international aid has been given to help the Palestinians build up their lives. Greenhouses were given to them after Israel disengaged from Gaza and they were in ruins after the Palestinians dismantled them and dug tunnels to smuggle weapons. Israel had an industrial zone in which Gazans could have good jobs. The zone was continually frought with murderous attacks against Israelis and Israel was forced to close it.

At some point, people need to stop excusing the deadly temper tantrums of the Palestinians. But I suppose the excuses will keep coming and more innocents will be torn apart by rifle fire. I can't thinking about the Columbine shootings. I saw the tail end of a program about it the other night. While there was an effort to understand the mental state of the murderers, I noticed no one blamed the victims. Why should the murders of 8 yeshiva students be treated any differently?