Much like the perpetrators of school shootings in America, writes Evelyn Gordon, Palestinians who carry out suicide bombings, stabbings, and so forth are often motivated by a desire for fame (or notoriety) and recognition. So long as the Palestinian Authority (PA)—not to mention Hamas—continues to glorify these “martyrs,” the motive for such attacks will not go away:

During the height of the second intifada (2000-05), Anat Berko interviewed numerous failed suicide bombers—people who were caught before they could blow themselves up. . . . As she put it in a 2014 interview, “The suicide bomber does not act out of suffering or inferior economic status, but rather out of a desire to win social recognition.” . . .

[Last week], the PA announced that it had named a plaza after Maher Younes, an Israeli Arab who kidnapped and murdered an IDF soldier in 1980. And four days before that, it issued a press release about a new game show on official PA television whose host opened it by praising “our heroic martyrs who water the land of Palestine with their blood every day.”. . .

This ongoing glorification of terrorists hasn’t made much of a dent in the Western dogma that Palestinian terror is actually driven by “legitimate grievances” and/or “poverty and distress.” Hence, many Westerners still deem PA incitement a trivial issue undeserving of attention, and Western countries still lavish aid on the PA without insisting on an end to such incitement.

This is clearly counterproductive for the West’s oft-proclaimed desire that Israel withdraw from the West Bank. So long as the PA continues urging its people to slaughter Israelis on a daily basis, such a withdrawal would be completely untenable. Were Israel to remove its soldiers, it would instantly be back in the situation of the second intifada—in which Palestinians had not just motive but also means and opportunity, and used it to slaughter over 1,000 Israelis, most of them civilians.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.