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In 1994, a deranged Israeli settler shot to death 29 Palestinian worshipers at a mosque in Hebron. With the exception of a few right-wing extremists, Israelis unequivocally condemned the atrocity.

There was no rationalization related to the «root causes» of the settler’s rage, no equivocation about the «frustration» of Israelis under constant Palestinian stoning and harassment, no justification on the grounds of some higher cause.

Since the Palestinian Authority was created and Yasser Arafat made his victorious comeback to Palestine from exile, more than 75 suicide and car bombings have racked Israel. Only last month 125 Israelis were killed by Palestinian terrorists.

Yet Palestinian condemnation of these attacks is rarely heard. In the exceptional instance when a bombing is condemned, it’s done in English and with such ambiguity that one is left wondering who are the real victims. In Arabic, it is different. Palestinian suicide bombers are praised as «martyrs» and their parents congratulated for the «honor» of having such a son or daughter. Shockingly, the parents themselves rejoice.

Even today — as suicide bombings terrorize Israelis — Arab leaders and Muslim authorities find themselves unable to condemn terrorism — Palestinian terrorism, that is.

The «Israeli crimes» against «freedom-loving» Palestinians are clearly protested. As the Arab League’s 22 members sanctions Palestinian attacks against Israelis as legitimate resistance to occupation, the 57-state Organization of the Islamic Conference rejects any link between terrorism and the Palestinian struggle.

In their morally distorted view, an Israeli soldier who shoots at a Hamas militant in Jenin who’s planning an attack against civilians commits an act of terror, but not so if a Palestinian blows himself up in Netanya and kills many Israelis.

Rather, the latter is the act of a freedom fighter, a shahid. As such, he or she enters the pantheon of Arab and Muslim heroes. Iraq, by the way, pays $15,000 per martyr to the families of these «heroes,» while Saudi Arabia has granted relatives of suicide bombers free trips to Mecca.

To their credit, and unsurprisingly, Israelis have not descended to their neighbors’ level of macabre barbarism. There in lies the fundamental moral difference between the parties in this conflict.

In fact, only a few of the ethnic groups that suffered throughout, modern history have resorted to terror. For instance, the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust did not engage in a campaign of systematically murdering German civilians after World War II. After Hiroshima and Nagazaki, Japanese did not generally carry out revenge attacks against Americans. Nor did most Americans react with rage against Muslims after the abominable Sept. 11 attacks. Despite the legitimate feelings of resentment, the peoples of these nations made an ethical decision vis–vis their behavior toward their former or present enemies.

But the Arabs and Muslims have not. Morality is not permitted to intrude in their political machinations.

Suicide-bombing is not the result of some desperate reaction to unbearable suffering. It is a deliberately chosen, carefully planned, generously financed, indiscriminately implemented and collectively celebrated policy of death. Palestinian suicide terror has sealed with blood and fire a collective «Mark of Cain» on this generation of Arabs and Muslims.

The Palestinian embrace of, and Arab and Muslim support for, suicide attacks underlies the fact that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not about a clash of two national movements aspiring to the same piece of land. This isn’t even a clash of cultures, or of two distinct civilizations. The Palestinians’ bestial, primitive and depraved practice shows that this conflict is really about a clash between civilization and barbarism.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Washington D.C.