Rockets blasted Israelis in the town of Sderot last Thursday, jolting residents and destroying property. The barrage included 9 to 13 Kassams, bringing the total number of rockets to hit Israel last week to more than 40.

“It was one of the scariest days I’ve ever lived through in Sderot,” Baruch Dahari, a Sapir College student, said, describing his house shaking, windows shattering, and two rockets exploding nearby.

“I plan on leaving the town immediately,” he said. “I can’t stay here; it’s just horrible.”

Another resident, who lives next to the alert system for incoming attacks, says the sirens are constantly being activated and strike her with fear as much as the detonations themselves.

“We cannot continue like this,” she said.

Last Wednesday, footage was released showing three terrorists shooting mortar shells at the Negev from a schoolyard in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces said terrorists were “aware of our sensitivity to these issues, and they take full advantage of the situation. This is as cynical as their use of the civilian population gets.”

The unsettling part of Thursday’s attack was that a wing of the Fatah organization immediately claimed responsibility for it. The Fatah group said that it was only the commencement of “Gaza Autumn,” a plan calling for hundreds of rocket attacks on Israelis in the Negev.

Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said the attacks are retaliation against “the evil Balfour Declaration,” which was issued 90 years ago Friday and enabled the creation of the Jewish state.

The rockets were launched from Gaza, which Israel surrendered to the Palestinian Authority in autumn 2005. Palestinians thanked Israel with more than 150 rocket attacks before the end of that year. Hamas bloodily ousted Fatah and the Palestinian Authority in June of this year. Not to be outdone by its rival, Fatah apparently still enjoys a presence in the area, which it also uses to do the one thing both squabblers can agree upon: destroy Israelis. A spokesman for Fatah in Gaza bragged Fatah has been responsible for dozens of attacks on Jewish towns in the vicinity.

More shocking than the fact that terrorists regularly launch attacks against a sovereign nation; more shocking than the fact that they use children as shields; more shocking than the fact that they target and kill civilian men, women and children; more shocking than the fact that Fatah gunmen plotted to kill the prime minister; and even more shocking than the fact that the group responsible for all of this is the Palestinians’ ruling party, is this: The international community remains un-shocked.

Abbas has called for Fatah and Hamas Palestinians to “raise rifles against the occupation” as “our legitimate right” and done almost nothing effective to hamper attacks against Israel. As Melanie Phillips points out, this is because any Palestinian action against “heroic” militants is considered anathema.

Meanwhile, Israel, the United States and Europe deal with the government of Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas as the “moderate” option among the Palestinians. The West, including Israel itself, has shipped Abbas thousands of weapons and wired millions to Fatah’s accounts.

Going into the planned Annapolis summit this month, Western governments—including Washington—are joining Arabs in demanding Israel put major concessions on the negotiating table and framing Fatah as a sort of last best hope for Middle Eastern peace.

Yes, Fatah is the same group that hits civilians with Kassams. Yes, it does so to commemorate major events in Jewish statehood. Yes, it directly attacks Israel as a nation using illegal and terrorist means. Still, the world simply ignores these facts.

In the same way the Israeli government has chronically ignored Sderot because it is inconvenient, the international community ignores Fatah’s true nature because the inconvenient truth is, there are no moderate Palestinian alternatives.

For more on the subject of politics and peace in the Middle East, read Jerusalem in Prophecy.