Child Abuse
We believed that eventually an American journalist would actually see what he was looking at. We hope Martin Fletcher of NBC Nightly News is the start of a trend; here is part of his report from Gaza on Tuesday 8 May.
We believed that eventually an American journalist would actually see what he was looking at. We hope Martin Fletcher of NBC Nightly News is the start of a trend; here is part of his report from Gaza on Tuesday 8 May.
MARTIN FLETCHER: The Palestinians are calling on the youngest to join the battle, and using a stunning tactic: commercials on Palestinian TV asking children, “Drop your toys. Pick up rocks.” [Video shows a child dropping his toy and young boys throwing stones.] Even using actors to recreate the most famous image of the uprising, one that shocked the world: 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura dying in his father’s arms, caught in a hail of Israeli bullets. (Ed. Note: there is substantial evidence that PA bullets killed al-Dura.) The commercial shows Mohammed in paradise, urging other children to quote, “Follow him.” [The scene of al-Dura slumped against his father shifts to an image of the boy running through a sunlit field in “paradise” where he then greets other boys who sit together in the green grass.]
At Mohammed al-Dura’s school in Gaza today, the daily prayer and a call to arms. “Are you afraid?” the teacher shouts. “No,” the children answer. And then, “We ask Allah to destroy the Jews.” [The scene is of rows of children in a schoolyard shouting in unison.]
Mohammed’s desk is now a shrine. [Image of al-Dura’s former classroom, which contains a shrine set on a student desk with his photograph, a PLO flag and flowers.] The teacher asks, “Where is Mohammed?” The children answer, “Paradise!”
FLETCHER: ‘Paradise.’ And in English class, they learned a new phrase today.
TEACHER: “The Israeli army killed our friend. Shame on them!” CHILDREN in unison: “Shame on them!”
FLETCHER: Already, young boys are learning how to fight. Summer camp teaches how to resist the Israelis. But now they are being taught not to fear death. [Images of young boys in military training, crawling under barbed wire and other drills] The greatest glory, they are told, is to be a martyr. Martin Fletcher, NBC News, Gaza.
But what does it mean to teach children not to fear death? A coalition of American pediatricians, DOCS (Doctors Opposed to Child Sacrifice) says that official PA encouragement of children to participate in violence against Israel is “societal child abuse.” DOCS founder Dr. Pejman Salimpour said, “Adults, governments, and media outlets that encourage young children to participate in violence to further their own political agenda are practicing a form of societal child abuse…” The Jerusalem Post reports that DOCS called on the PA to halt broadcasts that glorify martyrdom.
Dr. Salimpour and Mr. Fletcher deserve thanks for pointing out what should have been obvious since Arafat launched the latest war on Israel: children who should have been protected have been cynically and abusively manipulated, robbed not only of their childhoods, but of their humanity, and sometimes of their lives. And by extension, it will become impossible for them to ever find a way to accept the legitimacy of Israel, or of Jews living in the Middle East, ensuring that the conflict runs at least one more generation.