Another interesting debate has surfaced on my Facebook page. This time, it has to do with the use of the word "extremists."

Palestinians have a dictionary of terms that they label as acceptable and rejectable. "Rejection" tops their list of words to embrace, but it also includes things they oppose such as "normalization," which symbolizes any relationship between Palestinians and Israelis.

The worst, however, is the word "extremist." Many Palestinians reject the use of the term to describe the extreme elements in their community. Why? Because many Palestinians are frequently provoked into fits of anger by Israel's own growing extremism.

In a way, Palestinians have a guilt complex. Most want peace but just as many can't contain their anger. It's been 66 years of hell; a conflict in which Palestinians have seen the steady destruction of their lands by Israel.

Worse, these tyrants of vernacular, as I call them, have watched as the real extremists, the Israeli right, has done everything it can to block peace without being held responsible for their own rejectionism.

When you combine the word "extremist" with the "Middle East," you don't think of Israel. Most think of Arab or Islamic extremism, because Arab and Islamic extremism is so much more dramatic. Israeli extremism, especially in the West, is accepted as "centrist" and viewed as not being a problem or cause of the continuing deterioration in the region.

The real threat to the creation of a Palestine state is not only Israeli extremism, but also Arab and Islamic extremism. These extremists thrive on conflict. They want conflict. They don't want peace, as that will mean the end of their existence. For many extremists, they have built a profitable industry driven by ignorance, anger and hatred.

It is human nature for people who are happy (moderates) to not speak up, express their views or share their emotions. How can you share an emotion when you don't have an emotion to express?

But the extremists, the haters, the angry rejectionists, they are all driven by emotion. Expressing their emotion pushes them to even greater extremes because extremism never brings a sense of satisfaction.

As a journalist, I get lots of hate mail. I have a small coven of haters driven more by their anger with my moderation than with Israel's own fanaticism. Why is that, by the way? Well, the haters really hate all Israelis and Jews. They don't distinguish between moderate Israelis or extremist Israelis. But they are forced to distinguish between moderate Palestinians like me and extremists like them in order to separate themselves and their lifelong difficulty with success.

As you can tell, I hate extremists. And I look at the Middle East through a difference lens. The Middle East is divided between moderates and extremists, not Israelis and Palestinians. That's the real dividing line. The Palestinian extremists dislike that analogy because it puts them shoulder-to-shoulder with the Israeli extremists who they really hate.

The biggest threat facing the Middle East is extremism. Extremism is a cancer. It thrives on conflict and confusion and frustration. It exploits failure. Many moderate Palestinians often find themselves frustrated by the failure of the peace process and become angry. It's human nature. Extremists prey on that frustration, and they feed it and welcome it.

Extremists have one major obstacle, though. They are incapable of being successful. They can't win. They best they can do is prevent peace and thereby create a sense of "winning."

That's why, in the 1990s, when Palestinian President Yasir Arafat reached out and shook the hand of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the extremists on both sides went berserk. Extremist Jews attacked Muslims who were praying at the Hebron Mosque, killing some 29 innocent Palestinian civilians.

Fortunately, the fanatic killer, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, was killed himself. But that act of terrorism provoked the first ever act of suicide bombing by the Palestinians several months later. And the Palestinian extremists turned to suicide bombing as the method to disrupt the peace process.

The weak link in the Oslo peace process of the 1990s was not the Palestinians. It was the Israelis who couldn't make the decision to surrender the land they captured in 1967 in exchange for a final peace. That refusal to compromise by Israel has been the single greatest obstacle to peace, although masterful Israeli public relations place the blame on the Palestinians.

Every time Rabin and Arafat moved forward with peace, Palestinian suicide bombers struck, provoking a negative reaction among Israelis. The Israelis like to assert that the Palestinians are the weak-minded and can't support peace, but the truth is the Israelis are the more reticent against peace.

That's why it is so important to break away from the mold of seeing the conflict as Palestinians and Israelis, and instead see the conflict as extremists versus moderates.

If the moderates can come together, they can silence the extremists, who are small but loud, and assert the only solution to the Middle East conflict, compromise based on two-states.

It is the only solution, which is why the extremists so vehemently reject it.

Ray Hanania is an award-winning Palestinian American columnist managing editor of The Arab Daily News at www.TheArabDailyNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @RayHanania. To find out more about Ray Hanania and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.