Yesterday, a seventeen year old Palestinian potential suicide-murderer, being chased by Israeli security forces, blew himself up. Fortunately, no one else was hurt. One of the original stories on the incident with graphic image is here.

I was watching FOX News earlier tonight, and they did a sort of "story behind the story" piece on this. They showed the family being congratulated, shouting and saying how proud they were of their son, being presented with a heroic poster of their boy, siblings trying to be happy and hold back tears - all de rigeur for a Palestinian "martyr's" family and accompanying show for the cameras.

But they framed it a bit differently, this time. This time they noted that the family was "doing what was expected" for the cameras and for public consumption. But behind the scenes, in private, the family, particularly the father, was not so happy about events. He wasn't so happy with the poster. He wasn't very pleased that the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade had basically preyed on his young son, manipulating an impressionable youth into doing something terrible.

What did it say to me? Well, for one that many Palestinians are, indeed, trapped by the society in which they live. I'm not saying that Israelis have a responsibility to allow themselves to be blown up out of pitty while the Palestinians get their collective act together, but it is something to be mindful of. And further, and along those lines, is the true villainy of Yaser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, their media and their very deliberate cultivation of this death culture that traps so many people in a cage they can't escape. They are every bit as responsible for the death and horror as the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, Hamas, etc... The PA perpetuates the culture, the rich stew that the rest of that bacteria thrives in. I'm NOT trying to excuse the societal sicknesses the Palestinians have made for themselves. The thing is this. I don't expect individuals to be heroes. Lord knows, I'm not one. The vast, vast majority of people just go along to get along. They're not heroes, they don't have the strength or means to buck the system. Those who do so in the right cause are called heroes, not everymen, for a reason. They do what's expected of them in front of the crowd. They accept the poster, they scream the epithets, and they quietly, privately, behind closed-doors, and only behind closed-doors...question. That's what makes the leaders, the people at the top, the people with the responsibility to do their jobs and LEAD, such swine.

It's good to see that maybe, just maybe, some in Washington are catching on. (First link via Ocean Guy.)

Oh, and as a parting thought, consider how this makes the deluded fools in the ISM, the European Left and its Arafat photo-op politicians, the Guardian editorialists, the poseurs in the checkered kafiyehs, the armchair martyrs in the Arab press and all the other accomplices who help perpetuate the horrors of Palestinian terror by helping to make it a success - think about what it says about them. [The image of Rachel Corrie's parents accepting a framed picture of their daughter from Yaser Arafat keeps playing in my mind.] All these people should be holding a hand out to that father of the dead boy, with some damn tough love if necessary...but instead they stupidly contribute to reinforcing the bars of his cage...with the bones of his brainwashed son.