A Hamas member of the Palestinian parliament admitted in a recent televised address that his group makes regular use of willing Arab civilian human shields in its battle against Israel.

Speaking on Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa television two weeks ago, Fathi Hammad further noted that Hamas is fostering a "culture of death" among the Palestinians, and that this initiative is being eagerly adopted by Palestinian women and children, especially.

"For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry," said Hammad. The Palestinians are "saying to the Zionist enemy: 'We desire death like you desire life.'"

Those remarks were made just days before Israel launched a bruising military incursion into northern Gaza in response to escalating Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel. More than 100 Palestinians were killed during the operation, most of them armed terrorists.

Nevertheless, the same Hamas leaders who earlier boasted that the Palestinians aspire to a violent death used the occasion to shed crocodile tears over what they called an "Israeli massacre." Most of the international community parroted the Hamas line and roundly condemned Israel.

(Hammad's speech was translated and published late last week by the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI.)