A column in the Jerusalem Post takes on James Carroll.

Perhaps most inexplicable, given the writer’s awareness of the lethal impact of the inculcation of hatred against Jews in Europe, is his apparent refusal to credit Palestinian hate-indoctrination as the underlying cause of the savage attacks against Jews in Israel. Instead, readers are offered platitudes such as his claim that “Palestinian terrorism is rooted, above all, in the economic hopelessness of millions of impoverished and dispossessed Palestinians…” (September 2001) Carroll is evidently unwilling to hold accountable the Palestinian Authority, which from its inception has stoked anti-Jewish hatred through schools, media, mosques, summer camps and political rallies that have painted Jews as alien, thieving conquerors, to be driven out or destroyed.

The calamitous outcome is a population energized to kill a dehumanized foe.

In the same vein, Carroll minimizes Palestinian enthusiasm for terrorism. In a June 2003 column devoted almost entirely to Palestinian grievances – including his observation that “destruction of trees can be almost as shocking as assaults on human life” – he asserted that “a mere fraction of the Palestinian population” supports terrorism. Yet a respected Palestinian polling agency, the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, just weeks earlier had found a substantial majority of 59.9% of Palestinians supported suicide bombings “against Israeli civilians.” How, one wonders, is it possible for Mr. Carroll to confront the Catholic church for its action but to deny virulent hate-mongering by the PA?