DECADES OF INTERNATIONALLY SANCTIONED VICIOUS RESENTMENT HAVE TURNED INWARD

Honestly, what did you expect from two decades - at least two decades - of patting the Palestinians on the head and telling them it's not their fault? Here's a story that has not gotten nearly the attention it deserves, because it tells us nothing about where we're going. But it tells us everything about how we got here:

Goodbye boycott. For the first time since January 2006, the EU will donate money to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. The EU plans to transfer 4 million euros. The European Union has agreed to transfer 4 million euros (approximately $5 million) to the coffers of the Palestinian Authority government, effectively ending a freeze by Western nations on funding the Hamas terrorist-led entity. "The EU is resuming its support of the Palestinian Authority in a direct manner through the finance ministry," announced PA Finance Minister Dr. Salem Fayyad at a news conference Monday.

This is a perfect epitome of the last two decades of excusing any Palestinian intransigence. A few days ago TAB's JR discussed the logical extreme of this sensibility, which blames Israel for Palestinian infighting. It's also the result of generation after generation being nursed on vague, sometimes anti-Semitic, sometimes anti-Western, always vicious hatred (blame MEMRI! It's their fault for telling us!) Of going into contortions to justify the most loathsome Palestinian barbarity. Listen - pathological resentment can't stay bottled up. It explodes in symptomatic outbursts of mass violence. Denied the ability to take out their vicious hatred on innocent Israelis, seething with decades of of self-pity - of course the Palestinians turned inward. That's what resentment is, that's what it does.

[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]