NYT BLAMES ISRAEL FOR PALI CULTURE OF DEATH

Years of Strife and Lost Hope Scar Young Palestinians - Steven Erlanger
The children of the second intifada that began in 2000 grew up in a territory riven by infighting, seared by violence, largely cut off from the world. "Ever since we were little, we see guns and tanks, and little kids wanting little guns to fight against Israel," said Raed Debie, 24, a student at An Najah University in Nablus. Issa Khalil, 25, said he was arrested for throwing stones in the first intifada that began in the late 1980s and again in the second uprising. "And for what?" he asked. "I wasted 14 years of my life. We all did."

While generations of young Palestinians have grown up stateless, seething at Israel as the visible agent of oppression, this generation is uniquely stymied.

Israeli checkpoints, barriers and closures, installed to protect Israelis from Palestinian suicide bombers, have lowered these young people’s horizons, shrunk their notion of Palestine and taken away virtually any informal interaction with outsiders, let alone with ordinary Israelis. The security measures have become even tighter since the election to power a year ago of the Islamist group Hamas, which preaches eternal “resistance” to Israeli occupation and rejects Israel’s right to permanent existence on this land.

During most of the 1980s and ’90s, as many as 150,000 Palestinians came into Israel daily to work, study and shop. While they were not treated as equals, many learned Hebrew and established relationships.

Now, the only Israelis whom Palestinians see are armed — soldiers and settlers. The West Bank is cut into three parts by checkpoints; Gazan men under 30 are virtually unable to leave their tiny, poor and overcrowded territory. Few talk of peace, only of a lifetime of “resistance.”

MR. ERLANGER AND THE EDITORS OF THE NYT MAY WANT TO TAKE A LOOK AT PALESTINIAN TEXTBOOKS AND TELEVISION TO SEE WHY PALESTINIAN YOUTH HAVE BEEN BRAINWASHED TO STRAP BOMBS ON THEIR CHESTS AND BLOW UP JEWISH WOMAN AND CHILDREN. IF THAT'S TOO MUCH WORK, MAYBE THEY SHOULD TAKE A LOOK AT THIS 10 MINUTE VIDEO.