On Thursday, when speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister noted the silence from the world body about Iran’s continued genocidal threats about eliminating the Jewish state. The response from those in attendance, including a low-level U.S. delegation (Ambassador Samantha Power had reportedly been ordered by the president to boycott Netanyahu’s speech), was an agonizing silence that lasted 44 seconds. A day later that deafening silence is still resonating around the world. If anything it has grown louder in the wake of a murderous terror attack on an Israeli family in the West Bank, in which two young parents were shot to death while their four children looked on in horror.

As it happens, a group affiliated with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah Party carried out this act of terrorism. Moreover in the day since this bloody crime occurred the PA president, who has been acclaimed by President Obama as a champion of peace, has not condemned this crime. His silence as well as that of most of the civilized world about this latest instance of a growing wave of anti-Jewish terror on the roads of the West Bank and the streets of Jerusalem speaks volumes about a Palestinian culture of violence that has made peace impossible.

The reason for the international community’s indifference to this wave of terror is the same as for its silence about Iran’s genocidal intentions and support for terrorism. When it comes to attacks on Jews or the state of Israel, the rules are different from those that apply to those that affect other nations and peoples. That Israeli Jews are being subjected to what amounts to a low-level third intifada is considered to be as insignificant as are the continuing threats from Iran’s leader that Israel will soon cease to exist. That is a promise they hope to keep by supporting terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as through a nuclear program that has just been given an international seal of approval and a clear path to fruition once the deal Iran struck with the West expires.

But as the Obama administration and Secretary of State John Kerry gear up for what may be a new effort to revive the peace process in the coming months, it is vital that the world draw the proper conclusions from both this latest incident and the context of incitement to hatred against Jews that is being conducted by the Palestinian Authority.

Earlier this week, Abbas spoke the General Assembly and declared that the PA would no longer feel itself bound by the Oslo Accords. This was a sham that even those sympathetic to his cause found it hard to take seriously. Oslo died 15 years ago when Abbas’s predecessor Yasir Arafat rejected an Israeli offer of peace and an independent state and answered with a terrorist war of attrition known as the second intifada. In the intervening years, the Palestinians have continued to reject peace since even a supposed moderate such as Abbas cannot bring himself to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders would be drawn. But since Abbas benefits as much from economic, political and security cooperation with Israel, the notion that he would walk away from the structure set up by the Oslo agreement is farcical.

But what was significant in Abbas’s speech was his decision to continue a campaign of lies and hate directed at Israelis. Specifically, his accusations that Israel planned to take actions on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount that would deny Muslims access to their mosques is more than merely a canard. It is the sort of incitement that Palestinian leaders have resorted to whenever they wish to foment violence against Jews. Abbas does so whenever, as he does now, feels threatened by the competition with his Hamas rivals who rule Gaza. But this is no empty gesture. When Abbas sends a signal to his people that it is open season on Jews, bloodshed like the murder of the Henkins and the routine terror attacks involving gasoline bombs, stabbings, and lethal rocks increase. Palestinian terror doesn’t grow out of vacuum.

At the heart of this appeal is not a demand for a border with Israel that is more to the Palestinians’ liking, but the kind of anti-Semitic blood libel that continues to fuel the conflict. So long as Abbas embraces and funds terrorists and uses his official media to promote hate violence will follow.

If the U.S. cannot demand Abbas condemn the attack by his Fatah affiliates while even-handedly calling on both sides for restraint, even though the violence is coming from only one direction, why should we expect the Palestinians to behave differently. Moreover, those who think Jews living or traveling in the West Bank are fair game for terror or deserve to die need to explain why that is so when they would correctly condemn any attacks on Arabs in Israel. The double standard is not about territory; it’s about hate and the desire to extinguish Jewish life and the Jewish state.

So long as both Iranian and Palestinian hatred against Jews is either ignored or, as Abbas was, applauded by the international community, there is little incentive for change. That community continues to treat Netanyahu with disdain. But their dissatisfaction with him has nothing to do with particular Israeli policies or even sympathy for the Palestinians. The silence continues, but it begins and ends with a rising tide of anti-Semitism that has swept through Europe and has established a firm beachhead at the United Nations. It is the duty of civilized people to condemn this hate but no one should hold their breath waiting for either the Obama administration or the crowd at the General Assembly to draw the appropriate conclusions about the intentions of Iran or the Palestinians.