A large part of the Western progressive movement has convinced itself that supporting Palestinians means explaining away Palestinian responsibility. I think this has crossed into racism.

The racism is in the expectation.

Progressives speak about Palestinians as people entitled to dignity, political rights, freedom and self-determination. Then violence enters the conversation, and suddenly Palestinians are treated as though they have very little control over their own behavior. Their choices are traced back to occupation, humiliation, poverty, trauma, or some Israeli action that supposedly explains what came next.

The Palestinian making the choice slowly disappears.

I have spent most of my adult life teaching people to make decisions under pressure. In Krav Maga training, we deal with fear, anger, physical danger and the consequences of making the wrong decision. Pressure affects judgment. It doesn’t erase responsibility.

On October 12, 2000, Israeli reservists Yossi Avrahami and Vadim Nurzhitz accidentally entered Ramallah. Palestinian Authority police took them to a local police station. A mob stormed the building, reached the two men and murdered them. They were beaten and stabbed, and their mutilated bodies were later dragged through Ramallah.

Aziz Salha became the face of that day.

After participating in the killing, he appeared at a second-floor window with his hands covered in blood. The crowd below cheered. In later testimony about the Ramallah lynching, Salha described the atmosphere inside the station as a “craze to see blood.” He described stabbing one of the reservists while other people continued attacking him. A Palestinian Authority police officer admitted beating........

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