WASHINGTON – House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) on Friday blamed a hateful Palestinian culture for the bloody half-century long Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East.

“Sadly it’s a culture filled with resentment and hatred,” Cantor said at the Faith and Freedom Conference, as first reported by TPM’s Benjy Sarlin. “It is that culture that underlies the Palestinians’ and broader Arab world’s refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist, and this is the root of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.”

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The majority leader’s comments came two weeks after President Barack Obama renewed efforts to forge peace between the war-torn peoples. Obama suggested the starting point for the negotiations be the U.N.-ascribed borders before Israel began occupying parts of the Palestinian territories in the 1967 war.

“It’s not about the 1967 lines,” said Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in Congress.