Cynthia Yacowar-Sweeney is a Montreal-based PR communications professional and a research associate of Canadian Institute for Jewish Research (CIJR). She monitors and comments on Mideast media reports.
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Just over a month ago, Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat claimed he had accepted the recommendations of the Mitchell Commission Report as a basis to reconvene peace talks, a report that calls first and foremost for an immediate ceasefire, for an unconditional end to the violence? The report also recommends that the Palestinians make it clear that "terrorism is unacceptable" and urges them to "incarcerate terrorists operating within the PA's jurisdiction". But Arafat will not re-arrest known Islamic terrorists responsible for carrying out dozens of bombings in Israel since September, including Friday's blast in Tel Aviv.

Instead, Palestinians celebrated in the streets of Ramallah, firing wildly into the air, upon hearing the news of the Tel Aviv massacre. The father of suicide bomber Saeed Hotani was extremely happy when he heard the news that his son was the bomber. "I wish I had done it myself", he says.

There will be no chance for peace until Palestinian parents begin to love their children more than they hate the Jews. More than 76 percent of Palestinians support suicide attacks, according to a Palestinian opinion poll released Sunday.

The Palestinian Authority has spent years indoctrinating a new generation of children to hate Israel and the Jews through hate-mongering in his state-controlled media, school textbooks, summer camps and in mosque sermons. To become a suicide bomber is the greatest honour a young Palestinian can bestow on one's family and oneself.

Faced with increasingly hostile world opinion and Israel's finger on the trigger, Arafat vowed the day after the massacre to do his utmost to reach a ceasefire. His "utmost" included issuing orders only to the "national" forces, not to "religious" forces, thereby excluding Islamic military groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. These two terrorist organizations, along with Arafat's Fatah, are not accepting the ceasefire. Yet they all operate under the guidance and control of the PA, over which Arafat is the leader. Ten other Palestinian groups refuse to accept the ceasefire.

And attacks continue in Gaza and the West Bank against Israeli targets. More than 40 mortars have been fired at Israeli target since Arafat's announcement. Shooting and stoning attacks keep claiming Jewish victims. Hate songs are still being broadcast on Palestinian tv, and ads praising the intifada are still being published in the official PA newspaper.

Marwan Bargouti, head of Tanzim in the West Bank, Fatah's military offshoot, vowed Sunday that "the intifada and the armed resistance will continue for as long as even one settler or one soldier remains in the conquered Palestinian territories". But it's not just about the settlements. Tel Aviv is not a settlement. Neither are Netanya, Hadera nor Jerusalem, sites of previous bombings, also located within Israel proper. What the Palestinians view as "conquered territories" include all of Israel.

Less than a year ago, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians a state of their own, which included over 95% of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. His generous offer included dismantling most of the settlements and admitting thousands of Palestinians back into Israel proper. But it was not accepted by Arafat, proving that this recent wave of Palestinian terrorism is not about the settlements, or the Temple Mount, or the Right of Return. It's about the Palestinian refusal to recognize the right of Jews to live in a Jewish State.

In a BBC interview this past weekend, Jibril Rajoub, Palestinian Security Chief in the West Bank, claimed it was "unfair" and "irrational" to be asked if he would arrest Hamas members, that it should be asked to the Israelis, insisting that the worst kind of terrorism is occupation", again referring to the settlements. No, Mr. Rajoub, the worst kind of terrorism is the kind you support and instigate, the kind that kills and maims children. To compare building houses with blowing up school busses, or lynching civilians, or bludgeoning children to death, or slaughtering teenagers at a disco, is grossly immoral.

The 1993 Oslo Accords never prohibited Israel from building or expanding settlements, but rather explicitly declared that the fate of the settlements would be decided upon in the final negotiations, and not by violence. Freezing the settlements, as recommended by the Mitchell Commission, should not be a pre-condition to end the violence.

If only Arafat would match his words with deeds, he could help alleviate the suffering inflicted on both the Palestinians and Israelis. Yet it seems that he has no intention of ending the campaign of anti-Jewish incitement, or of ending the violence. Until he does, there can be no resumption of peace talks.

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