Make their lives comfortable enough, and the terrorism will stop. In some form or other, the entire Arab-Jew peace process is predicated on that idea.

That notion is false, and has been repeatedly proven so since the 1993 handshake between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn.

Nevertheless, Israel, the United States and Europe in particular have continued to push the doomed process. Meanwhile, both the U.S. and European countries continue to fund the Palestinian Authority, despite ample proof that some of those funds support terrorist activities (see one example here).

The irony is rich: Nations donate money to Palestinians in order to better position themselves as mediators of the peace process—while their money is used to blow up civilians and shatter the peace process.

The latest proof of the fallacy of this thinking comes from a poll conducted between November 21 and December 10 by Fafo, a Norwegian-based nongovernmental organization. The poll not only showed over two thirds of Palestinians supporting suicide bombings and other violence against Israelis in order to force more political concessions from them, but also that almost the same number support al Qaeda’s terrorist activity in the United States and Europe.

Is it not worth seriously contemplating the fact that, despite the flow of cash from the U.S. and Europe toward the Palestinian Authority being stronger and swifter than ever, nearly two thirds of Palestinians want to see American and European innocents killed in religion-inspired attacks?

Any notion that the problem of terrorism can be ameliorated by throwing money at it—make their lives comfortable enough, and the terrorism will stop—is patently wrong. This poll upholds the apparently little-understood truth that terrorists are not just poor, illiterate, simple, impressionable street rats. At the heart of these groups are well-educated, moneyed and privileged individuals who support, train, direct and fund their evil activities. The poor are essentially foot soldiers in the radicals’ war, and there is absolutely nothing to suggest that the comforts associated with money, education and privilege do anything to temper the religious fervor behind their violent hatreds.

Surely these facts are not lost on the U.S. and Europe. Washington, however, seems committed to seeing through the implementation of democracy in the Middle East, no matter how ugly (meaning radically Islamist) the results may be. For European nations, however, there is very likely a much more sinister motive behind their being the Palestinian Authority’s most generous benefactor—despite a majority of Palestinians wanting to see Europeans dead.

To understand what that reason may well be, and how Europe tends to operate in order to achieve its goals, look at events that led up to the 1998 war in Kosovo. The Trumpet has repeatedly documented how it was the Vatican’s and Germany’s recognition of Croatia’s and Slovenia’s independence in 1991 that began a snowballing of conflict leading to that war—and how Germany subsequently positioned itself to mop up the mess afterward, to the point now of effectively absorbing the whole of the Balkans as a clutch of EU colonies.

This was a classic example of a strategy Europe has used repeatedly throughout history. Essentially, Europe has a habit of creating a crisis—and then offering itself as the solution to that crisis.

This is precisely the strategy the EU is employing in Israel at present.

Does Europe truly seek Israel’s best interests? The answer is a clear no. European antipathy for Israel is strong today. An alarming number of Europeans say they are tired of Holocaust remorse. Two 2002 surveys from the Anti-Defamation League showed a majority of Germans, Spaniards, Austrians and Swiss believe “Jews still talk too much about the Holocaust.” Other polls show old prejudices and suspicions creeping their way back into mainstream European thought. As the Arab-Israeli conflict persists, a growing number of Europeans seem to believe that the Jews must be at fault. An October 2003 poll showed that, among populations in EU member nations, Israel is considered by the majority to be the greatest threat to world peace. The specter of the Holocaust has never left Europe.

By funding the Palestinians so robustly and failing to ensure the moneys stay out of the hands of terrorists, the Europeans are guaranteeing that the peace process will fail. By supporting the idea of dividing Jerusalem and giving half of it to the Palestinians, the Europeans are guaranteeing that Jerusalem will become a hornet’s nest when the Palestinians insist on gaining the whole of it, as they most assuredly will. By continually providing ammunition for the radicalization of the Palestinian cause and undercutting the strength of the Israeli position, the Europeans are creating a crisis.

Bible prophecy shows that, when the time is right, they will offer their services as a solution. But—just as in the Balkans—that “solution” will involve swallowing up Israel.