It’s not the disputed occupation of the West Bank that convinced a 17-year-old Palestinian teenager to stab a 13-year-old Jewish girl to death while she was sleeping. Rather, it’s the corrosive and longtime occupation of Palestinian hearts and minds with vicious, genocidal Jew-hatred.

“Hate has no place in the curriculum of schools, and the glorification of violence has no place in the education of children,” Sen. Hillary Clinton said in 2007, after a Senate hearing on Palestinian Authority (PA) schoolbooks and media presented by the watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Referring to official PA TV broadcasts, she said they “were a clear example of child abuse.” Referring to new PA 12th grade textbooks, she said “these textbooks do not give Palestinian children an education; they give them an indoctrination.” Her conclusion: “When we viewed this report in combination with other media that these children are exposed to, we see a larger picture that is disturbing... because it basically, profoundly poisons the minds of these children.” Poison is the right word. How else do you describe the condition of a mind or a heart that murders a young girl in her bedroom?

....Murdering a little Jewish girl has nothing to do with fighting Israeli policies and everything to do with the brainwashing that teaches Palestinians that Jews are not humans. We have ignored this brainwashing for so long that now we are in freefall. The Jew-hatred has gone so deep and so broad that it is killing all hope and putting Israelis strictly in survival mode. As long as the Jew-hatred and the violence continues, the Palestinians will never convince Israelis that they can take risks for peace. Jewish groups who crave peace must call for an end to the occupation of Palestinian hearts and minds with vicious, genocidal, demonizing Jew-hatred. This is the occupation that kills.