Israel vs. Hezbollah

[Uncle Mxy]

There's no need to reach all the way back to WWII for a comparison. What Israel is doing in Lebanon is very similar to what we're doing in Iraq, just smaller in scale with fewer civilians killed.

What Israel is doing in Lebanon is quite similar to what Israel did in Lebanon in 1982, only it was the PLO instead of Hezbollah on the south Lebanon border at that time. There was the similar ambiguity over who crossed the border to attack first. There was a similar foreign-sponsored terrorist instigator within Lebanon (the ANO, who had broken off from the PLO) that resulted in Israel attacking all of Lebanon. Same shit, different decade...

Fighting a pre-emptive war of choice to advance what you have defined as your security interests is what both countries are doing. Of course Israel has a much stronger case, with Hezbullah posing a direct threat right on their border stockpiling missiles and calling for the destruction of Israel.

The key is to ask yourself why there's anti-Israeli people right at the border. Why don't they disperse into other population mixes, get the fuck out, etc. In the PLO's case, they were there because they were pushed out of Israel and Jordan, not because the Lebanese or Palestinians particularly wanted them to be there. Hezbollah more-or-less built upon that.

IMO, FWIW, opinion stuff to get people worked up:

The formation of Israel owing to the Zionist movement and British imperialism led to this recent displacement which has never been addressed. The Palestinians and other Arabs pushed back, Israel pushed some more with the aid of U.S. support (the U.S. having replaced Britain as the sponsoring superpower in the eyes of most), and the pushing and shoving in the region continues to this day. Is that Israel's fault? Well, before there was Israel, they were being pushed to a mythical elsewhere all around Europe. Follow the cause-effect linked list and there's a repetitive bloody mosaic of pain going back centuries. Righteousness gets thrown out the window.

A lot of people who aren't particularly on either side want to turn the whole bloody region into a giant parking lot as a consequence, in much the same way you might fantasize about strangling a bunch of loud crying babies at a public place to stop your head from hurting. I'm sure this doesn't help.

I think it's morbidly amusing that the U.S. is the arms dealer of choice for both Israel and Saudi Arabia.

[Taymelo]

The formation of Israel owing to the Zionist movement and British imperialism led to this recent displacement which has never been addressed. The Palestinians and other Arabs pushed back, Israel pushed some more with the aid of U.S. support (the U.S. having replaced Britain as the sponsoring superpower in the eyes of most), and the pushing and shoving in the region continues to this day. Is that Israel's fault? Well, before there was Israel, they were being pushed to a mythical elsewhere all around Europe. Follow the cause-effect linked list and there's a repetitive bloody mosaic of pain going back centuries. Righteousness gets thrown out the window.

I don't see anything in that description about jews buying a good portion of the land that comprises Israel, fair and square, from its arab neighbors in the first place, dating back to the 1800's.

And I don't see anything in that description about Israel taking control, fair and square, of abandonded desert wasteland that had no owner - land that comprises another very good portion of the land that comprises Israel - and turning it into a desert oasis.

Redemption of land in Eretz Israel, much of which had fallen into neglect under foreign rule, began in the mid-1850s with the first attempts to enable Jews to live productively in Ottoman Palestine without reliance on the "old yishuv" model of overseas support. Sir Moses Montefiore (1784-1885) made the first known land purchase by someone from outside the region in 1855: 10 hectares (250 acres) of orange groves in Jaffa, under a newly-made arrangement with the Sultan allowing these first-ever purchases. Other private acquisitions followed, and by 1882, some 2,200 hectares had been purchased by Jews....

Each purchase entailed a cumbersome bureaucratic procedure vis-à-vis the local Turkish authorities, which, in the final declining phase of the Ottoman Empire, were either hostile to or uninterested in Jewish holdings in the sparsely populated backwater province that Palestine had become. Nearly all land was owned by the state (and was passed on to subsequent sovereigns) or by private and public entities through title or leasing arrangements. This state of affairs, coupled with the frequent need to resort to bribery in official dealings, gave the Jewish purchases a clandestine complexion that would recur in subsequent years....

The Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth LeYisrael) was established to buy land in Palestine for reclamation and Jewish settlement. In its first decade, the JNF built a worldwide fundraising organization based on sale of stamps, collection "Blue Boxes" in homes and schools and solicitation of donations. In the spring of 1903, JNF acquired its first parcel of land: 800 acres in Hadera. Other modest purchases were made in 1904 and 1908 in Lower Galilee, Judea, and the Lake Kinneret region, and two forms of settlement that would prove crucial in the land-acquisition enterprise were pioneered there: the cooperative (moshav) and the collective (kevutsa, later kibbutz).

From the start, the organization focused on greening the land through the planting of trees....

In 1908, the first JNF trees were planted at Hulda: olive trees in memory of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of Zionism. In 1920, JNF expanded its role to help reclaim the swamps of Palestine. There quickly followed afforestation efforts. Since 1920, millions of trees have been planted in Israel by the Jewish National Fund.

Baron Benjamin (Edmond James) de Rothschild (1845-1934) enlisted in this cause after being petitioned by the leaders of Rishon Lezion, one of the First Aliya villages. His patronage embraced 12 settlements at all three levels of land redemption: purchase, reclamation and economically viable settlement....

In a military biography of Moshe Dayan, the early Zionist activity is described this way:

"Using Rothschild's money, these Jews purchased land from absentee Turkish landlords. To the Arab tenant farmers, the transfer of land from Turkish to Jewish ownership was of little consequence since the Jews rehired them as agricultural workers."

By the time Israel became a state in 1948, JNF owned 12.5 percent of all the land of Israel on which 80 percent of Israel's population now lives. With this ownership came the responsibility of transforming the land into a beautiful and fertile area that would be a suitable home for the new state.

Shlomo Gravetz of the Jewish National Fund says: "Throughout the history of land reclamation by Jews in Eretz Yisrael, the Arabs have always claimed that the Jews were throwing them off their land. In 1932 the High Commissioner appointed the Bentwich Committee to investigate these claims, and out of 700 purchases of Arab property, the committee did not find one case in which the Jews had acted immorally."

In my next installment, I'll debunk the pushing and shoving argument.

OK. I'll do it now.

In reality, in 1948, arabs could have had 45% of all of the land at issue, with the jews getting 55%. Since the jews owned more of the land than the arabs did (see above) it was actually a steal of a deal for the arabs.

In reality, they were buying land from jews - not selling land to jews (for pennies on the dollar - the same land they sold to the jews a few decades earlier for top dollar.)

Sorry if I blame them for this conflict. It could and should have been over in 1948, but its the arabs' fault it isn't. Sorry. Truth hurts.

Then, Arafat got a second bite at the apple. Israel handed him on a silver platter up to 97% of what his people wanted. He turned it down outright, continued to steal from his people and put the money overseas, and supported suicide bombers.

Sorry if I blame Arafat for this conflict. It could and should have ended in 2000, but Arafat didn't want 97% of EVERYTHING HIS PEOPLE WANTED. He wanted ZERO PERCENT of everything his people wanted.

And sorry, too, if I blame the palestinian people (although there really is no such thing) for teaching their youngsters each and every single day in school how glorious the smell of a martyr is, how wonderful the feel of fresh jewish blood is, and how they should grow up to be a suicide bomber.

Israeli schools teach math and science. This is what palestinian schools teach.

Palestinian kids raised for war
Taught to hate, kill Jews through 'Sesame Street'-type TV show
By Jon E. Dougherty and David Kupelian
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

Heavily armed Israeli soldiers shooting at innocent Palestinian children caught in the crossfire. That is the image that has dominated international press coverage of the five-week-old wave of violence that has wracked the Middle East, during which, according to some accounts, over 40 Palestinian children have died.

With each new report of youthful casualties, the perception of something unthinkable -- that Israeli soldiers are targeting children -- is reinforced in media coverage, a great deal of which tends to favor the perceived underdog in the clashes, namely the Palestinians.

The reality is indeed unthinkable, but not in the way so neatly portrayed by sound-bite media accounts of Palestinian children being shot by Israeli soldiers. Indeed, powerful and secret forces are at work in Palestinian nurseries, preschools, entertainment venues, classrooms and summer camps - forces that shape the current and future battles between Palestinians and Israelis, indeed, make them all but inevitable. However, up until recently, this amazing story has for the most part been hidden from Western eyes.

Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews, to glorify "jihad" (holy war), violence, death and child martyrdom almost from birth, as an essential part of their culture and destiny.

As captured on an Israeli video documentary produced in 1998, a "Sesame Street"-like children's program called the "Children's Club" -- complete with puppet shows, songs, Mickey Mouse and other characters -- focused on inculcating intense hatred of Jews and a passion for engaging in and celebrating violence against them in a perpetual "jihad" until the day the Israeli flags come down from above "Palestinian land" and the Palestinian flag is raised.

In one song on the "Children's Club," very young children are shown singing songs about wanting to become "suicide warriors" and to take up "a machine gun" to direct "violence, anger, anger, anger" against Israelis.

During the show, which features children aged 4-10, one young boy sings, "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber." Afterward, other children stand to call for "Jihad! Holy war to the end against the Zionist enemy."

In another segment, a boy who appears to be no more than 8 or 9 years old chants: "My patience has run out. All Arab existence cries for revenge" against the Jews in Israel.

The documentary also juxtaposes the children's programming with television news reporting, in which the news anchor - reflecting the same message the children are receiving -describes Palestinians as "noble, courageous" fighters, while describing Israel as "mean, fascist, racist, genocidal" and "Nazis."

Other "highlights" of the "Children's Club":

Groups of children are gathered together, shouting for "Jihad against Israel."

One girl, who appears to be in a Palestinian school classroom, sings of donning "battledress" to "attack the Zionists."

A small girl chants the now-familiar ditty, "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber."

An adult narrator reads material in a Palestinian school pamphlet: "I have raised my children for jihad and on the principle that they never give up on their land."

One segment depicts a small boy on the street chanting, "Revolution until victory."

Another boy is shown in class proclaiming, "We will settle our claims with stones and bullets."

In Palestinian school classrooms, the message is the same.

"It's very scary - it's a state-run educational system that teaches its children to be martyrs," said Meyrav Wurmser, Ph.D., an expert in Middle East politics who taught at the U.S. Naval Academy and Johns Hopkins. Wurmser is the author of the recently published book, "Schools of Ba'athism," in which she makes a comprehensive survey and analysis of Syrian school textbooks. What she found is identical to what goes on with the Palestinians, she says.

"In the Palestinian case, what we see is the cynical use of children, who are exposed to a state-run ideology that pushes them to their death, in the name of Palestinian nationalism," she says. "Children are taught to idealize death, to view it as a positive. In many cases, they are told that death is not death at all, but rather the beginning of a new life."

Wurmser is currently the executive director of The Middle East Media & Research Institute, or MEMRI, and has published extensively on the Middle East and Arab and Israeli politics.

How can children be sold on dying in battle?

"The state threatens children if they're not willing to commit jihad," says Wurmser, "and tells them they will be punished by God if they do not commit jihad. If they do commit jihad, they and their families will be benefited by the state. [Their families] are promised major financial benefits if they kill themselves in suicide attacks against Israel."

To get over the fear, explained Wurmser, "they are told by their teachers that they're not going to die at all. There is definitely an element of denial they are exposed to."

This is not to say that some parents won't object to having their children converted to terrorists, says Wurmser, "but in the more religious families, there is no sense of sorrow. We see Palestinian mothers who have lost children - especially parents from very fundamentalist Muslim backgrounds -- who are not upset at all, but who say their sons have brought great honor to their families." This is typical, she says, of "radical national Arab regimes who have adopted the Islamic line."

This shocking assessment was bolstered in an Oct. 27 Jerusalem Post editorial, in which writer Gerald M. Steinberg provided details of statements made by Palestinians to reporters after their children had been killed in fighting.

"Interviewed by journalists after [recent] tragedies, some of the parents of these young victims refer to their children as shaheeds (martyrs), whose lives were given willingly and proudly to the Palestinian cause in fighting the hated Zionist enemy," Steinberg said.


Palestinian man teaching children how to fire M-16 automatic assault rifles.

"In an unbelievably shocking scene, one mother boasted that she bore her son precisely for this purpose, and the father proudly claimed credit for providing the training. The parents will also receive a sizeable financial 'reward' from the Palestinian Authority," he said.

[Taymelo]

You know. Sometimes its ok to take a stand. Sometimes its ok to say there's a right side and a wrong side. Sometimes political correctness is incorrect.

Has anyone in Israel ever done anything bad to anyone anywhere else?

The answer is yes.

Is Israel at fault for the inability to have peace in the middle east?

ABSOLUTELY NOT. They are surrounded on all sides by people who hate them. They have more motivation than any of their neighbors for peace - their very survival! They are a democratic government, with a parliamentary congress, a supreme court, a free press, and absolutely ZERO teaching of children to hate arabs.

The reality is that Israel wants peace and accepts a two state solution.

The reality is that some arabs don't want peace and do not accept a two state solution.

So the problem, as a whole, in reality, and without nitpicking every bomb dropped, and every dead civilian, really is 100% the fault of the arabs, and 0% the fault of the Israelis.

Here endeth the lesson.

[geerussell]

Is that Israel's fault? Well, before there was Israel, they were being pushed to a mythical elsewhere all around Europe.

The problem is they picked the wrong elsewhere. Instead of spending the last 50 years fighting over jerusalem, they could've been chillin in the US. The occasional mad gunman not withstanding, america is a pretty good place to be jewish.

Even today jews still flock to that crappy patch of dirt surrounded by enemies. I know that suffering is part of the jewish identity but maybe it's time to give it a rest and take the path of least resistance for once.

In my fantasy world, the rallying call for peace in the middle east would be "Come to America!" We'd even pay for it. If it meant we could stop giving billions annually it israel and billions annually to egypt (to keep peace with israel) we'd still come out ahead.

[Taymelo]

Hours after the killing of 15 Israelis in a Jerusalem restaurant last week, the brother of the 23-year-old suicide bomber delightedly announced that "this is a unique operation for its quality and success... Palestinians everywhere can now hold up their heads."

Likewise, after a 22-year-old suicide bomber two months earlier killed 21 Israelis at a Tel Aviv discotheque, his father announced: "I am very happy and proud of what my son did and, frankly, am a bit jealous... I wish I had done it myself."

And so it has been with nearly all suicide operations - family members rejoicing at the "martyrdom" of their brothers and children. Some fathers even publicly announce a hope that their children will kill Israelis in suicide operations.

Puzzled by this apparent denial of the primal human urge to protect one's young, President George W. Bush has commented, "I just can't understand this." He is hardly alone.

Two main factors account for this bizarre behavior. The first concerns the Palestinian Authority drumming into impressionable youth the glory of suicidal death while killing Israelis.

PA television harps constantly on this message. On the Children's Club (a Sesame Street-like children's program), a young boy sings: "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber." A repeatedly shown television clip calls on children to "Drop your toys. Pick up rocks." In another, the words to a children's song go: "How pleasant is the smell of martyrs, how pleasant the smell of land, the land enriched by the blood, the blood pouring out of a fresh body."

Ikrima Sabri, the PA's ranking religious leader, says, "The younger the martyr, the greater and the more I respect him," while praising mothers who "willingly sacrifice their offspring for the sake of freedom." PA schools indoctrinate pupils on the virtues and joys of martyrdom, then honor and celebrate suicide killers. Four summer camps are currently training eight- to 12-year-olds for suicide bombings. Organizations like Hamas promise to look after the killers' families' financial needs.

In all, notes Meyrav Wurmser, a Hudson Institute specialist on the indoctrination of pupils, the PA has developed "a state-run ideology that pushes [children] to their death." Why does this indoctrination work and why do Palestinian families enthusiastically send their children to die? What pressure could overcome the human instinct to protect one's beloved?

That pressure is not hard to locate, for it pervades Middle Eastern life. It is an unrelenting, compulsive preoccupation with family honor. The power of this obligation goes far beyond anything Westerners encounter.

The fixation on family honor takes two main forms. The negative one, called ird in Arabic, concerns the sexual purity of women and it accounts for the Middle Eastern custom of murdering female relatives for perceived offenses to the family. Such honor killings are intended to purify the family from its shame; thus do brothers kill sisters, cousins kill cousins, fathers kill daughters, and even sons kill mothers....

The positive form of honor (sharaf in Arabic) involves efforts to enhance the family's status by taking steps to win it praise and renown; and nothing can win a family as much glory as its willing sacrifice of a family member for a noble cause.

Thanks to PA propaganda, suicide bombing has become a highly honored act. Thus, the Tel Aviv bomber's father crowed about his son, "He has become a hero! Tell me, what more could a father ask?"

Combined, the monstrous social environment created by the PA and the families' preoccupation with social status goes far to explain why Palestinians glory in the destruction of their youth.

[Taymelo]

THE USE OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN
IN THE AL-AQSA INTIFADA
....

Since the recent disturbances began, media reports have often highlighted instances in which Palestinian children have been killed or injured by Israeli troops or policemen. These reports have generated much criticism of Israeli policies, although few in the Western world have thought through the chaos they see on the news to consider whose interests are served by the violence. Even fewer have access to the information necessary to place in legal and historical context these weeks of death and disorder.

The appearance of Palestinian children in these riots, it will be demonstrated, is not accidental. The Palestinian Authority has intentionally mobilized Palestinian children to man the front line in its struggle against Israel, frequently using them as shields to protect Palestinian gunmen. This mobilization of Palestinian youth has, moreover, been facilitated by the long-term impact of Palestinian Authority (PA) curricula, government-controlled media, and summer camp programs, which indoctrinated the youth for armed confrontation with Israel even prior to the current crisis.

The utilization of children in armed conflicts has been increasingly condemned by the international community. It is barred by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and recent UN Security Council Resolution 1261, which specifically described the use of children as soldiers as a "violation of international law."

Moreover, the Palestinian leadership, in a classic case of bad faith, accuses Israel of committing human rights violations for the fatalities while evading its own responsibility for the orchestrated appearance of children at the front lines of the conflict. This constitutes a cynical exploitation of human rights concerns. While the Palestinian Authority is not formally bound by international human rights conventions, it nonetheless is required by the Oslo agreements, which PA Chairman Yasser Arafat signed, to honor "internationally accepted norms of human rights and the rule of law."

Creating Martyrs for the Media

The visuals of a bleeding Palestinian child surrounded by screaming relatives all but obviate the need for most people to consider why and how the child was in harm's way in the first instance....

This data certainly provided an opportunity for Yasser Arafat who, addressing the Emergency Arab Summit in Cairo, appealed for help to stop the "'genocide and massacre' of his people armed with stones."10 Wielding their political clout at the United Nations, the Palestinians prevailed on the UN Human Rights Commission to condemn Israel for "crimes against humanity."11 Even the UN Security Council approved a completely one-sided resolution condemning Israel.12 Although these accusations are transparently rhetorical, there is little doubt that, by their deliberate misuse of children, the Palestinian cause has attracted new sympathy.

"Improved" Palestinian Tactics

The current violence has given the Palestinians the opportunity to improve on their widespread use of children in the original intifada of a decade ago and in other organized rioting during the interim years, such as in Hebron.13 This time the children act as bait, burning tires and shooting slingshots, to attract the television cameras and distract the IDF, in tandem with well-armed Palestinian gunmen in ambush positions.14 Since the Palestinian public knows that Israeli soldiers are ordered not to shoot live ammunition at children, they act as shields to protect Palestinian snipers who shoot to kill any exposed members of the IDF. When the youth rush forward throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, Palestinian snipers on rooftops and in alleys take aim at the IDF, on some occasions actually shooting Palestinian children from behind.15 Alternatively, according to IDF sources, Palestinian gunmen have shot from within a rioting crowd of civilians.16

The extent of the violence directed at Israel is illustrated by statistics from the month of October 2000. Palestinians perpetrated 599 shooting incidents at military,17 police, and civilian targets.18 Twenty-six bombs were detonated with intent to harm or kill Israelis,19 and 400 Molotov cocktails were thrown at Israelis. In all there were 3,209 violent disturbances including 1,397 stone throwing incidents.20 As a consequence, six Israeli civilians and seven soldiers were killed, and 51 civilians and 139 soldiers were injured.21

A cynical use of youngsters and children was repeatedly observed at the Netzarim junction in the Gaza Strip where buildings erected under the pretence of housing members of the PLO naval forces and their families were in fact used as shooting posts against an adjacent Israeli compound. The buildings were also used by the PA to assemble children to throw Molotov cocktails, gas canisters, and stones at IDF soldiers.22

Even the ambulances that wait to pick up the injured often serve a secondary (illegally under international law23) role -- to transport gunmen, Molotov cocktails, and rocks to the confrontation with the knowledge that Israel will not fire on these "medical vehicles."24 This is a clear violation of one of the fundamental precepts of humanitarian law and places at risk the immunity generally granted to medical services. After Palestinian gunmen inside the Red Crescent Headquarters in Ramallah opened fire on the IDF; and on the same day a Red Crescent ambulance was used in a nearby shooting attack, the IDF Spokesman issued this statement: "The IDF harshly condemns and views seriously shooting attacks toward an Israeli community from a Red Crescent building and ambulance, a body that is meant to offer humanitarian and medical assistance."25 In both cases the IDF refrained from responding....

The basic tactics of the intifadists, however, are not new. During the previous intifada, Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab extolled the usefulness of children-rioters in the Journal of Palestine Studies:

When the danger alarm is sounded the young people of the neighborhood divide into three teams. The first is composed of lookouts...the second team is basically defensive in nature; its main task is to cover the offensive team...the most courageous. After advancing to the Israeli position and throwing stones, the defensive team goes into action to cover the retreating youths. When the offensive team starts to retreat, it is the job of the defensive team to throw a barrage of stones at the soldiers.

The similarities of these violent tactics to childhood games like "tag" is not coincidental; the Palestinian leadership discovered a way to channel youthful energy into the uprising.

Incitement by Arafat and his Palestinian Authority
Thanks to their empowerment under the Oslo peace process, the Palestinian Authority has new and varied vehicles to motivate their youth to participate in anti-Israeli street violence. Television and radio stations, school textbooks, a range of newspapers and magazines, and even the summer camp curriculum are all, directly or indirectly, under the control of the PA.

Television broadcasts frequently include what in many Western countries would be deemed "hate speech." On July 2, 1998, in derogation of its commitments to combat incitement under the interim peace agreements (discussed below), a Palestinian television children's show called "The Children's Club," similar in its basic structure to "Sesame Street," aired an episode in which young boys with raised arms chanted "We are ready with our guns; revolution until victory; revolution until victory."35 On the same show, an 8-year-old boy announced to the audience (a group of children), "I come here to say that we will throw them to the quiet sea. Occupiers, your day is near, then we will settle our account. We will settle our claims with stones and bullets."36 Also on the Children's Club program, on February 8, 1998, a girl who could not have been more than ten years old declared that she wanted to "turn into a suicide warrior" in Jerusalem.

Other Palestinian institutions are also imbued with incitement. A New York Times reporter observed a PA-run summer camp program where the 25,000 campers stage the kidnapping of Israeli leaders, strip and assemble Kalachnikov assault rifles, and learn the art of ambushing.43 They are given camouflage uniforms and imitation guns.44 They parade and practice infiltration, crawling on their stomachs through obstacles. Training children for the armed struggle reminds one of the terrible price children have paid in other Middle Eastern wars. During the Iran-Iraq war, the Iranian government recruited tens of thousands of child soldiers, dubbed "Revolutionary Guards."45 Sent to the front to clear minefields and attack fortified Iraqi positions, these usually unarmed children faced near certain death.46 They were told that the little plastic key around their neck would open the gates to eternal paradise.

Even in the public schools, politics seem to be playing a major role in education. For example, the PA's Deputy Minister of Education, Naim Abu Humus, called on school administrators to dedicate the first class for praying for the souls of those killed during the Al-Aqsa intifada, saying "Today we glorify Al-Aqsa and Palestine, and remember the Palestinian martyrs."47

President Clinton, in a speech in late 1998, referred to "education for peace" as "the most important element" to make peace "sustainable."48 But Palestinian interest in reconciliation with Israel is notably absent from the Palestinian textbooks, even in the indigenous Palestinian textbooks, which this year partially replaced the old Jordanian textbooks previously used in their public schools. A sixth grade civics book portrays Israel as an aggressor and explains to the children that, "[t]he Palestinian people were expelled from their land as a result of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and have been subjected to massacres and banishment from their land."49 The map in the book makes no reference to the existence of Israel adjoining the PA territories; nor does it include major Israeli cities such as Tel Aviv.50 In fact, the only Israeli cities referenced are ones which previously had large Palestinian populations.51

A Palestinian mental health official confirmed that Palestinian children are chiefly motivated by what they see on Palestinian television: "the role of information is an additional factor behind the will of children to die the death of a saint, for they see on television their relatives as martyrs or wounded and hear the calls of praise that they receive."55 Clearly, PA government-controlled media play a significant role in both the long-term and immediate motivation of children to place themselves in life-threatening situations.

Negating the Raison D'etre of the Peace Process
The new Palestinian violence undermines not only the spirit of the Oslo peace process but its raison d'etre -- to resolve differences through negotiation rather than violence. As Arafat proclaimed in his September 9, 1993, letter to Yitzhak Rabin:

The PLO considers that the signing of the Declaration of Principles constitutes a historic event, inaugurating a new epoch of peaceful coexistence, free from violence and all other acts which endanger peace and stability. Accordingly, the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and all other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations, and discipline violators.56

This was his price of admission into the U.S.-brokered and funded peace process. In return, Rabin agreed to recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and commence negotiations with what previously had been deemed a terrorist organization.57

The problem of incitement to violence has been repeatedly addressed in the interim peace agreements. For example, the Cairo Agreement, signed by Arafat in 1994, obligates the PA to "foster mutual understanding and tolerance" and "abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda [and]...take legal measures to prevent such incitement by any organizations, groups or individuals."58

The Preamble of the Oslo II interim peace agreement, signed by Arafat in 1995, reaffirms the parties' "mutual commitment to act, in accordance with this Agreement, immediately, efficiently and effectively against acts or threats of terrorism, violence or incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis."59 Oslo II also contains provisions which obligate the Palestinian Legislative Council to "foster mutual understanding and tolerance and shall accordingly abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda...and...take legal measures to prevent incitement by any organizations, groups or individuals within their jurisdiction."60 This is followed by the requirement that "Israel and the Council will ensure that their respective educational systems contribute to the peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples and to peace in the entire region, and will refrain from the introduction of any motifs that could adversely affect the process of reconciliation."61 The Palestinian police's "duties and functions" include "combating terrorism and violence, and preventing incitement to violence."62 However, since the Al-Aqsa intifada began, the Palestinian police, whose salaries, assault rifles, training, and uniforms were paid for by Western donors, have done absolutely nothing to stop incitement; many have even trained their rifles on the IDF.

Thereafter, article 2(b) of the Note for the Record of the Hebron Protocol, signed by Arafat in 1997, reiterated the obligation of the Palestinians to "preventing incitement and hostile propaganda as specified in Article XXII" of the Oslo II agreement.63

The endemic problem of the PA's use of textbooks that incite to violence prompted the inclusion of a separate article in the Wye Agreement, signed by Arafat in 1998.64 Section II, A(3), captioned "Preventing Incitement," states:

a. Drawing on relevant international practice and pursuant to Article XXII(1) of the Interim Agreement and Note for the Record, the Palestinian side will issue a decree prohibiting all forms of incitement to violence or terror, and establishing mechanisms for acting systematically against all expressions or threats of violence or terror. This decree will be comparable to the existing Israeli legislation which deals with the same subject.

b. A US-Palestinian-Israeli committee will meet on a regular basis to monitor cases of possible incitement to violence or terror and to make recommendations and reports on how to prevent such incitement. The Israeli-Palestinian and U.S. sides will each appoint a media specialist, a law enforcement representative, an educational specialist, and a current or former elected official to the committee.65

Although the trilateral committee did meet, the Palestinian appointees resisted efforts to edit their textbooks. An editorial in the English language Palestinian newspaper Jerusalem Times, entitled "No Apologies for the Curriculum," proclaimed "[t]he children should know their history well, whether or not it pleases the world," and continued defiantly, "[w]e should not care if our curriculum does not please Israel."66 In the newspaper Al-Quds, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council denigrated the anti-incitement provisions of the Wye Agreement as "the most dangerous as it touches on the national ideology and national consciousness."67

In the most recent Sharm el-Sheikh interim agreement, signed by Arafat in 1999, which intended to implement the outstanding commitments of the previously signed agreements, the PA rededicated itself to: "8(a) ...immediately and effectively respond to the occurrence or anticipated occurrence of an act of terrorism, violence or incitement and shall take all necessary measures to prevent such an occurrence."68 But as demonstrated, none of the anti-incitement provisions in the interim peace agreements, each one signed by Arafat, have been honored in practice....

[Glenn]

Why not just bold the whole damn thing?

[Anthony]

Palestinian kids raised for war
Taught to hate, kill Jews through 'Sesame Street'-type TV show
By Jon E. Dougherty and David Kupelian
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

Heavily armed Israeli soldiers shooting at innocent Palestinian children caught in the crossfire. That is the image that has dominated international press coverage of the five-week-old wave of violence that has wracked the Middle East, during which, according to some accounts, over 40 Palestinian children have died.

With each new report of youthful casualties, the perception of something unthinkable -- that Israeli soldiers are targeting children -- is reinforced in media coverage, a great deal of which tends to favor the perceived underdog in the clashes, namely the Palestinians.

The reality is indeed unthinkable, but not in the way so neatly portrayed by sound-bite media accounts of Palestinian children being shot by Israeli soldiers. Indeed, powerful and secret forces are at work in Palestinian nurseries, preschools, entertainment venues, classrooms and summer camps - forces that shape the current and future battles between Palestinians and Israelis, indeed, make them all but inevitable. However, up until recently, this amazing story has for the most part been hidden from Western eyes.

Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews, to glorify "jihad" (holy war), violence, death and child martyrdom almost from birth, as an essential part of their culture and destiny.

As captured on an Israeli video documentary produced in 1998, a "Sesame Street"-like children's program called the "Children's Club" -- complete with puppet shows, songs, Mickey Mouse and other characters -- focused on inculcating intense hatred of Jews and a passion for engaging in and celebrating violence against them in a perpetual "jihad" until the day the Israeli flags come down from above "Palestinian land" and the Palestinian flag is raised.

In one song on the "Children's Club," very young children are shown singing songs about wanting to become "suicide warriors" and to take up "a machine gun" to direct "violence, anger, anger, anger" against Israelis.

During the show, which features children aged 4-10, one young boy sings, "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber." Afterward, other children stand to call for "Jihad! Holy war to the end against the Zionist enemy."

In another segment, a boy who appears to be no more than 8 or 9 years old chants: "My patience has run out. All Arab existence cries for revenge" against the Jews in Israel.

The documentary also juxtaposes the children's programming with television news reporting, in which the news anchor - reflecting the same message the children are receiving -describes Palestinians as "noble, courageous" fighters, while describing Israel as "mean, fascist, racist, genocidal" and "Nazis."

Other "highlights" of the "Children's Club":

Groups of children are gathered together, shouting for "Jihad against Israel."

One girl, who appears to be in a Palestinian school classroom, sings of donning "battledress" to "attack the Zionists."

A small girl chants the now-familiar ditty, "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber."

An adult narrator reads material in a Palestinian school pamphlet: "I have raised my children for jihad and on the principle that they never give up on their land."

One segment depicts a small boy on the street chanting, "Revolution until victory."

Another boy is shown in class proclaiming, "We will settle our claims with stones and bullets."

In Palestinian school classrooms, the message is the same.

"It's very scary - it's a state-run educational system that teaches its children to be martyrs," said Meyrav Wurmser, Ph.D., an expert in Middle East politics who taught at the U.S. Naval Academy and Johns Hopkins. Wurmser is the author of the recently published book, "Schools of Ba'athism," in which she makes a comprehensive survey and analysis of Syrian school textbooks. What she found is identical to what goes on with the Palestinians, she says.

"In the Palestinian case, what we see is the cynical use of children, who are exposed to a state-run ideology that pushes them to their death, in the name of Palestinian nationalism," she says. "Children are taught to idealize death, to view it as a positive. In many cases, they are told that death is not death at all, but rather the beginning of a new life."

Wurmser is currently the executive director of The Middle East Media & Research Institute, or MEMRI, and has published extensively on the Middle East and Arab and Israeli politics.

How can children be sold on dying in battle?

"The state threatens children if they're not willing to commit jihad," says Wurmser, "and tells them they will be punished by God if they do not commit jihad. If they do commit jihad, they and their families will be benefited by the state. [Their families] are promised major financial benefits if they kill themselves in suicide attacks against Israel."

To get over the fear, explained Wurmser, "they are told by their teachers that they're not going to die at all. There is definitely an element of denial they are exposed to."

This is not to say that some parents won't object to having their children converted to terrorists, says Wurmser, "but in the more religious families, there is no sense of sorrow. We see Palestinian mothers who have lost children - especially parents from very fundamentalist Muslim backgrounds -- who are not upset at all, but who say their sons have brought great honor to their families." This is typical, she says, of "radical national Arab regimes who have adopted the Islamic line."

This shocking assessment was bolstered in an Oct. 27 Jerusalem Post editorial, in which writer Gerald M. Steinberg provided details of statements made by Palestinians to reporters after their children had been killed in fighting.

"Interviewed by journalists after [recent] tragedies, some of the parents of these young victims refer to their children as shaheeds (martyrs), whose lives were given willingly and proudly to the Palestinian cause in fighting the hated Zionist enemy," Steinberg said.


Palestinian man teaching children how to fire M-16 automatic assault rifles.

"In an unbelievably shocking scene, one mother boasted that she bore her son precisely for this purpose, and the father proudly claimed credit for providing the training. The parents will also receive a sizeable financial 'reward' from the Palestinian Authority," he said.

I'm sure Jews love arabs too.

The reality is that some Arabs don't want peace and do not accept a two state solution.

Ohhhh Sure, the Lebanese people love being bombed to the tune of hundreds civilain deaths. We love it. In fact, we send letters to Israel every day to ask them to continue it.


Israel isnt raging war on Hezbollah, they're raging war on all the people of Lebanon. It gets more and more obvious every day. And this is the arabs fault? You dont think Israel is overreacting just a little here? All this damage over 2 soldiers? Two fucking soldiers? They kill hundreds of innocent over two soldiers?

Im' sure they're not to blame at all though. They never do nothing to no one. Its all our fault.

Both sides are at fault. Unfortunately the wrong people are being killed. Kids, women, and men who have nothing to do with this fight.

[Taymelo]

Is that Israel's fault? Well, before there was Israel, they were being pushed to a mythical elsewhere all around Europe.

The problem is they picked the wrong elsewhere. Instead of spending the last 50 years fighting over jerusalem, they could've been chillin in the US. The occasional mad gunman not withstanding, america is a pretty good place to be jewish.

Even today jews still flock to that crappy patch of dirt surrounded by enemies. I know that suffering is part of the jewish identity but maybe it's time to give it a rest and take the path of least resistance for once.

In my fantasy world, the rallying call for peace in the middle east would be "Come to America!" We'd even pay for it. If it meant we could stop giving billions annually it israel and billions annually to egypt (to keep peace with israel) we'd still come out ahead.

the United States government turned away thousands of European Jews fleeing Nazi persecution during World War II

[Taymelo]

Anthony. You misunderstand my point.

I said forget about individual battles, such as the current conflict in Lebanon.

My point was, overall, if it were up to Israel, there would be peace, recognized borders, and stability.

You can argue that by bombing Lebanon they are going against their own interests, but I'm not talking about a single military issue, or about whether it was a mistake, or whether it was disproportionate.

I'm talking about the grand scheme of things in the middle east conflict.

In the grand scheme of things, Israel wants peace, but some of its partners don't.

Do you disagree with that?