There’s an interesting story in today’s Jerusalem Post which reminds us of a side to the settlement issue that rarely makes it into the western press:

“One day after the Palestinian Authority reaffirmed the death penalty for Palestinians who sell land to Israelis,” the paper reports, “one of the most prominent Arab land dealers called on the Israeli authorities to help him and other Palestinians whose lives are at risk”.

If you deconstruct that one single paragraph, unpack all the assumptions contained within it and lay it out in the open for all to see, you can explain pretty much everything one needs to know about guilt and innocence in the entire Israel-Palestine conflict. That, of course, is precisely why the likes of the BBC and the Guardian are so quiet on such matters. So then, what exactly does it tell us?

The central point is the depth of the anti-Semitism in Palestinian culture, and its shamelessness. The Jew has become such an object of hatred that to sell to him awakens the urge to kill. More than that, the official Palestinian leadership, the moderate Palestinian leadership does not feel constrained to carry through such a policy in secret, via death squads or assassins — though it does that as well. It proudly hoists its flag of oppression and waves it to the world — a world which it knows will either applaud it for doing so or give it a free pass by ignoring it.

Let us repeat the point: the Palestinians under Mahmoud Abbas have the death penalty for selling land to Jews. Really, is there anything else one needs to know?