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The fruits of that education are now on display: the lynching of two Israeli reservists, a young Palestinian raising his bloodied hands in triumph to the cheering crowd; the destruction of the Jewish shrine at Joseph's Tomb, not just torched and desecrated but dismantled stone by stone.
In the fury, there is an exhilaration. In a dozen Middle East capitals, mass demonstrations call for death to the Jews. This euphoria, points out Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes, has not been seen since 1967. It comes from the feeling that the Jews are on the run.
In May-June 1967, on the eve of the Six-Day War, frenzied crowds in Cairo and Damascus and elsewhere called for the final battle to destroy Israel. Israel's swift and stunning victory deflated that enthusiasm quickly and for decades to come.
Until now. With Israel's myriad concessions, unilateral withdrawals, pleas for peace and general demoralization, the euphoria has returned. Israel's enemies sense weakness. The disorganized withdrawal from Lebanon has become the model. If the Israelis could be driven out of Lebanon, reason the Palestinians, we can drive them out of Palestine. The Palestinians see an Israel with no stomach for losses; an Israel crossing previously sacred redlines without getting anything in return; an Israel prepared to surrender sovereignty over Judaism's holiest shrine; an Israel bending to every U.S. pressure to keep giving with no reciprocity.
And now they see Barak giving empty ultimatums. Why shouldn't Arafat keep fighting? He has the Security Council, the Western media and the Arab world behind him. In front of him lies an Israel in shock, dazed and confused by the Barak paradox. No dove ever wanted or pursued peace more fervently. And what does he get? War. Neville Chamberlain was equally perplexed on Sept. 1, 1939.