In defiance of Vice President Joe Biden’s previous criticism for failing to condemn terror, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refused on Wednesday to condemn the terror attack that claimed the life of American student Taylor Force earlier this week.

In what The New York Times referred to as an “unusually stinging critique,” Biden said on Tuesday after a string of terror attacks that the United States “condemns these acts and condemns the failure to condemn these acts.”

This cannot become an accepted modus operandi. This cannot be viewed by civilized leaders as an appropriate way in which to behave even if it appears to inure to the benefit of one side or the other. It’s just not tolerable in the 21st century. They’re targeting innocent civilians, mothers, pregnant women, teenagers, grandfathers, American citizens. There can be no justification for this hateful violence, and the United States stands firmly behind Israel’s right to defend itself as we are defending ourselves at this moment as well.

Biden met with Abbas in Ramallah for about two hours on Wednesday, but neither of them spoke to reporters afterwards. A statement on the official Palestinian Wafa news website said that “Abbas expressed his condolences over the American citizen who was killed yesterday, stressing at the same time that the occupation authorities have killed 200 Palestinians in the past five months.”

A majority of the Palestinian deaths have been of assailants killed carrying out terror attacks. 34 Israelis have been killed and 394 more injured in terror attacks since last September, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency services.

Palestinian Media Watch reported on Wednesday that Fatah, Abbas’ political party, posted an image to its Facebook page calling the terrorist who killed Force and injured ten others a “holy martyr.” On official Palestinian Authority television, Masalha was called a “martyr” and his victims were referred to as “settlers.”

[Photo: Flash90 ]