A piece at the Jerusalem Post by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook shows beyond any doubt that the driving force behind atrocities like today’s bus bombing is not poverty. It’s not desperation, and it’s not lack of full employment. It’s an all-pervasive Islamic cult of death, deliberately and relentlessly hammered into the minds of Arab children from the time they are babies: Aspiration, not desperation.

Palestinian mothers have been taught to aspire to death for Allah for their children. A mother explained recently on PA TV why she expressed sounds of joy upon hearing of her son’s death: “A mother makes sounds of joy because she wants him to reach shahada. He became a shahid for Allah Almighty. I wanted the best for him; this is the best for [my son] Shaadi.”

PA ideology rejects the values that other societies hold supreme. Here is Issam Sissalem on PA TV: “We are not afraid to die and do not love life.”

Palestinian children have learned to see dying for the deity as their goal in life. In a chilling talk show interview on PA TV, two 11-year-old girls explain cheerfully and eloquently what they and their young friends desire:

Walla: Shahada is very, very beautiful. Everyone aspires to shahada. What could be better than going to paradise?

Host: What is better, peace and full rights for the Palestinian people or shahada?
Walla: Shahada.

Yussra: Of course shahada is sweet. We don’t want this world, we want the Afterlife. We benefit not from this life but from the Afterlife… Every Palestinian child aged, say 12, says “Oh Lord, I would like to become a shahid.”

Public opinion polls indicate that Yussra and Walla represent an overwhelming majority of Palestinian children who embrace this belief. According to three different polls, 70 to 80 percent of Palestinian children aspire to shahada.

In the ancient world, there was widespread belief that the deity wanted humans to die as the ultimate form of worship. People gave their children to the deity of Molech and the Baal. This ancient belief has now returned to plague the world.