Images of hundreds of Palestinians spontaneously celebrating must have caused deep revulsion among Americans and many others who were horrified by the suicide hijack attacks and the ensuing carnage.
Like the attacks themselves, assuming that they were indeed the work of Islamic or Arab terrorists - which may not be the case - those images of jubilation carried a message which will almost certainly be ignored.
Rather than prompting a serious attempt to address the question Why?, both are likely to widen the gulf of miscomprehension and drastically envenom the situation.
The fact is that for more than five decades, in defiance of countless UN resolutions and of international law, the Palestinians' land has been occupied and their rights ignored by Israel, with full diplomatic cover and open-ended financial and military backing from Washington.
So for many Palestinians, Israel and the US are virtually one and the same thing.
That is why the awesome atrocity triggered jubilation among many ordinary Palestinians.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1540000/1540364.stm