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Feasting On Your Children
0
n Wednesday morning, the New
York Times reported: "A senior
Palestinian official, Yasir Abed
Rabbo, said the Palestinian Authori-
ty was beginning a campaign to discourage
children under 16 from taking part in vio-
lence."
Are we supposed to applaud?
Since the start of the "Independence intifa. -
In some instances,
we get the feeling that
Palestinian parents
have permitted their
children to be placed
in the line of fire
without a lot
of thought to the
possibility that the
consequences might
be deadly and inciting
rather than noble
and patriotic.
da" (uprising) on Sept. 28, Palestinian leaders
have cynically exploited the idealism of their
teenagers. They have deliberately used their
sons and, in some cases, their daughters as a
rock-throwing buffer behind which they hide
their trained adults. Israel Defense Forces
troops are under orders to use water cannon
or tear gas to repulse rock-throwers, but they
are allowed to use lethal force if their lives are
endangered. Palestinian riflemen, in protected
areas behind the teenagers, start shooting,
knowing it will provoke the use of live
ammunition. If a teenager is killed, as scores
of them have been, the Palestinians make sure
the media know about it and trumpet the
"brutality" of the Israeli "aggressors." The
death of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Durrah
at the Netzarim Junction was a tragic acci-
dent; the subsequent deaths of Palestinian
teenagers are more like deliberate provoca-
tion.
The notion that the Palestinian Authority
is only now "beginning a campaign to dis-
courage" demonstrates their indifference to
the norms of the 21st century. Heck, even the
United Nations, which is often the PA's dear-
est defender, agrees that you ought to be 15
before you go to war.
Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Yehuda
Lancry, got it right in a recent letter to the
United Nations International Children's
Emergency Fund (UNICEF): "Chairman
Yasser Arafat, who is ruthlessly encouraging
the involvement of children in the violence,
calls them 'the Generals of the rocks.' He
would have the world believe that Israel, with
its guns and helicopters, is waging a war
against 10-year-olds with small stones.
"In truth, however, the children . . . are
used as human shields for the gunmen, bomb
throwers and lynch mobs, whose faces have
been totally obscured and invisible to the
media."
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Unlikely Martyrs
There is, of course, a history of using children
as religious combatants. In the Children's
Crusade of 1212, thousands of French and
German Christian peasant boys, some as
young as 6, marched off in hopes of reclaim-
ing Jerusalem from the Arabs. As one con-
temporary chronicler noted, "of the many
thousands who rose up, only very few
returned." More recently, very young children
have been given rifles and hand grenades and
sent to slaughter in wars in Southeast Asia
and sub-Saharan Africa.
But nothing in recent experience quite
matches the exploitation of the Palestinian
youth. They are taught in school that Jews are
vicious scum, and they are egged on in "training
camps" to believe that they will win in hand-to-
hand combat. In the mosques, the imams
preach the joys of martyrdom. When the Arab
states convened in Cairo last month, one of the
high-priority items was establishing a $100-mil-
lion "martyrs" fund to reward the families of the
slain.
In some instances, we get the feeling that
Palestinian parents have permitted their chil-
dren to be placed in the line of fire without a
lot of thought to the possibility that the con-
sequences might be deadly and inciting rather
than noble and patriotic.
Instead of "beginning a campaign to dis-
courage," why not two simple, direct steps by
Arafat — an order to parents and police to
keep children away from flashpoints and an
order to parents and schools to denounce
textbooks that teach lies about Jews and their
homeland? Both would be overdue steps
toward civilized behavior. II
LETTERS
Rabin Folly
Continues
As with all other sane people,
I was horrified when Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
was murdered five years ago.
Having said that, I believed
then, and continue to believe,
that his policies, while well-
intentioned, were ill-advised,
wrongheaded and deleterious
to the security of Israel
("Legacy of Hope," Nov. 3,
page 37).
Unfortunately, Prime
Minister Ehud Barak has
advanced the folly of Rabin
by extending the willingness
of Israel's government unilat-
erally to surrender land for
empty words. The PLO is a
terror organization whose
only real goal is the destruc-
tion of Israel. The mission
has never changed; murderers
do not change their stripes.
Palestinian Authority
Chairman Yasser Arafat's
modus operandi results in dif-
ferent speeches based on
whether he speaks in Arabic
or in English. His call for
Palestinian resistance caused
the current violence and, in
fact, those calls antedated the
visit by Likud Party leader
Ariel Sharon to the Temple
Mount. Mr. Sharon is enti-
tled to go anywhere in Israel
that he wants to go, as is any
Christian or Muslim Arab.
LETTERS on page 38
re
,
11/10
2000
37